


Anticipation

by notaparty



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Dead Robins, F/M, JaySteph - Freeform, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-06 05:51:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8737321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaparty/pseuds/notaparty
Summary: Steph runs into a dead end while investigating a missing person in Jason's neighborhood, and Jason needs some Bat-level technology to help with a case of his own. The two reluctantly team up and learn that their cases (and lives) are a lot more intertwined than they thought. Batgirl!Steph/Red Hood!Jason.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Doesn't really fit in canon anywhere? But ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯. Steph is around 24-25 and Jason is 26-27ish.

_Stephanie_

99.9% of the time, I could totally lose myself on patrol. My thoughts never wandered to the crap going on in my personal life—it was just me, an amazing view of the Gotham skyline, and a bunch of criminals to punch. Oh, and Oracle’s voice in my ear, but she could stay.

But today I couldn’t lose myself in the patrol because my stupid ex-boyfriend was in my ear-com instead.

“Batgirl, we need you to sweep the area two blocks west—can you handle—“

“I can handle it, Red Robin,” I snapped, standing up from my comfortable sitting spot.

I heard Tim sigh through his nose, but he didn’t say a word after that, which somehow made me even more annoyed. Why did he always ask if I could handle the most basic stuff, as if I hadn’t been through the same training he had?

I hated it. I _hated_ it. I had no idea how it didn’t bother me in all the years we knew each other. Or maybe it wasn’t a problem until after the whole Bruce dying situation. He had always been smart—a trait that I loved about him—but he had never been such a monster dick about it in the past. So, we did the on-again-off-again thing for a few months and now we were, in my eyes, totally off.

The streets Red Robin asked me to sweep were clear, thankfully, and all in all, it was a light night. I only had to bust two different muggings, and that didn’t even make me break a sweat.

“Can we not have Red Robin patrolling the same area as me?” I asked as I walked up to Babs. She was surveying a bunch of feeds on her computer, her hands still on her keyboard.

She finally looked over her shoulder at me. “Sorry, thought you guys were ok.”

I shrugged and pulled off my mask. “I’ll stop wanting to punch him in the neck eventually.”

Babs sighed. “If it makes you feel better I’ve got a case for you. This professor, Marcia Smith-Gould, disappeared from her neighborhood, just hours after she presented a big paper.”

“No paper trail? Or digital one?”

“Nope. Her roommate reported that she had just packed a bag and left without explanation. He also said that she had been acting more and more erratically in the past few weeks. I checked up on the roommate, but he’s in the clear. And her phone service is off, all social media accounts dead.”

She pulled up an image of the woman. She was maybe about Babs’s age, mid-thirties-ish, grinning and holding up some certificate.

“So why is she important?”

Babs shuffled through the stacks of paper on her desk until she found what she was looking for. “Here’s the paper she presented. Essentially, she learned that people’s minds can be influenced and controlled with electrical pulses. It was a breakthrough on mass mind control, which every mid-level criminal in Gotham wants to get a handle on. Better to nip this in the bud before we have another brainwashing situation on our hands.”

“Yeah, those are never fun.” I thumbed through the paper.

“We need boots on the ground in her neighborhood. Head over to there and observe for a bit, ask some questions. I got you an outfit so you can blend.”

So I did. The clothes were nice, a little more buttoned up than what I usually wore—nice light brown leather jacket for the spring weather, skinny jeans without holes, a button-down floral blouse, and a plain brown tote.

I wandered around a little Mom and Pop dollar store, and asked the bored teen if there were any regulars who hadn’t been showing lately. He didn’t give a single shit, which wasn’t helpful. I moved on to the bodega a block or so away to see if they knew of Marcia or anyone related to her. The guy who helped me find some stuff I needed mentioned that he used to see her every morning, but she hadn’t been coming in lately. So he knew only slightly less than I did.

Just as I was checking out, a man came in and I glanced over my shoulder. I briefly tensed, recognizing him—Jason Todd, The Robin That Shall Not Be Named (Unless You Want To Make Things Awkward.) I had no idea if he knew me, but he definitely checked me out, which I was too distracted to appreciate. If I didn’t know who he was, I probably would have given him a once-over too. Those dumb romance novels that went on and on about a dude’s sexy, smoldering gaze might have been onto something.

“Miss?” The cashier pushed my change at me.

“Oh, sorry. Got a little distracted,” I said, chuckling and taking my money. “Thank you.”

I rushed past him and out the door, making a mental note to tell Babs.

 

_Jason_

So, that’s what Batgirl’s face looked like in person. I'd only seen a few low-res pictures of her in the file I kept on all the Bats. She was pretty—hot, even. Just from looking at her, I could tell she was the jeans and a t-shirt type, which made her buttoned-up outfit feel out of place. Though I hoped she wore jeans that hugged her ass like that all the time. It’d be a crime if she didn’t.

I glanced over my shoulder to watch her leave, her ponytail swinging.

I bought a pack of cigarettes even though I kept telling myself that I was going to quit. On my walk back home, I saw her again, this time at the new coffee place that sold pricey drinks to people who somehow didn’t realize that the bodega next door sold the same shit for less. Even from outside I could tell the barista was trying to flirt with her and she was shutting him down. What was she doing? Going undercover? If she was, she wasn’t doing a good job blending. She looked like she was about to go lead a sorority meeting, which contrasted the grunge of the neighborhood. Or maybe I just noticed her more because of who she was.

I had purposefully stayed away from women for the past six months, and for good reason. Even the string of one night stands I had took my attention away from cases. My cycle of going to bars and hooking up with women whose names I didn’t even know took up more nights than I wanted to admit.

So I swore off sex, and now the flood of hormones that Stephanie unexpectedly released in me was making me regret it.

This walk was supposed to be clearing my head.

What could she possibly be researching that I didn’t know already? Had I missed a spot in my patrol? Unless she was also looking for the same guy I was.

I went back to my apartment and sat on the roof to smoke and go over my notes on the person I was trying to track down. Silas Young was a low level criminal, the kind I could easily handle, but recently he had started gaining a suspicious amount of ground in the neighborhood. Enough for me to start tracking his movements.

He was your typical Gotham in-and-out-of-jail type—mostly misdemeanors and one felony that he’d been released for two years ago. He was eerily similar to me, except ten or so years older. White-ish kid born into a broken home in a shitty part of Gotham, foster care shifted into living on the streets. When he wasn’t in prison, he skirted by, robbing people along with his low level gang. When he wasn’t stealing, he was selling weed. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was smoking his own supply.

He had done that for a while, until six months ago, when he started to lead the gang. Soon there were more and more crimes that were committed under his command, and just as soon as they picked up speed, he disappeared. The last I’d heard of him, he’d stolen some auto parts and disappeared without a trace. I didn’t have a single lead or a motive. Even his digital footprint had dried up, at least from what I could tell. I didn’t have enough computer power in my arsenal to dig through the shitload of data out there as deeply as I wanted to.

I looked out over the neighborhood. My building was the tallest in the neighborhood even though it was only six stories high, so I got a good view of things on the outskirts of Gotham. Things seemed to be calm, probably because the weather hadn’t warmed up yet. The shitstorm always hit right around June, and it was only the first week of May.

I glanced down at the street, and a blonde head caught my eye. Stephanie, again, this time squatting along the side of the dive bar I frequented, eating a kebab. Was she following me? I didn’t have much of a beef with the Bats anymore, at least personally, so why would she even care to track me? We hadn’t even met directly. Before today I’d only seen her back in person because her front was too busy pressed up against Tim, the Robin at the time, sloppily making out against an alley wall. And not saying I was the best example of classy, but Jesus fuckin’ Christ, even I waited to get off duty for that shit.

I put out the nub of my old cigarette and lit a new one as I walked down the stairs and outside to confront her. From what I’d read, she was more of the sass first, then punch kind of girl. Hopefully we’d skip the second half of that.

She didn’t even look up at first, until she smelled the cigarette. Her mouth popped open in surprise when she registered that it was me.

“Relax, I know who you are and you clearly know who I am,” I said, sliding down the wall so I was squatting next to her. Her kebab smelled so good that I regretted not ordering one myself.

Her cheeks went a little pink. “Do you?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why else would I be sitting next to you?”

She shrugged, and said, “Weird guys try to talk to me all the time. Why do you think you’re any different?”

“Because I’m not weird, especially in comparison to you. I don’t wear a cape and spandex regularly anymore.”

She looked up at the sky and sighed. “What do you want?”

—

_Stephanie_

His voice was exactly what I expected it to be—very deep, manly, all that good stuff--but my reaction to it wasn’t. My vagina literally twitched a little bit. And being this close to him was not helping the situation in my undercarriage. I could smell a bit of the musky soap he used underneath the smell of the cigarette he was smoking.

“Just wondering why you’re following me.” He took a drag and blew the smoke out away from me, downwind.

“Following you? What are you talking about?” I eyed his cigarette. “Smoking is terrible, by the way.”

“Really? I had no idea.” He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “I’m trying to quit, but it’s not going well. But again, why are you following me?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not following you. I’m just here for a thing and you just happened to be in the way.”

“Does it involve me at all?” He stubbed out the cigarette even though he hadn’t smoked the whole thing and tossed it in the trash.

How much could I even divulge without Babs flipping out on me? “A woman went missing yesterday evening. Trying to track her down. Believe it or not, things happen in your neighborhood that aren’t your business.”

There, vague enough.

His brow furrowed and he gestured to my outfit. “So you’re just wandering around the neighborhood, looking like you fell out of a Gap ad, trying to find her?”

“Just…don’t worry about it. It’s not your mission.” I felt my cheeks burning. Had he checked me out because I looked like a dweeb? “Also, I look fine.”

“I didn’t say you looked bad, I was just trying to say you look like a yuppie.”

I snorted. “A yuppie? Are yuppies even a thing these days?”

“That’s beside the point.” He ran his hand over his face. “You look out of place and clearly don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“I’m not a total idiot. I can do detective work,” I said quietly.

“But you don’t know this neighborhood like I do. Let’s cut a deal,” he said. “I help you with you with your mission, and you help me with something related to one of mine.”

That was…not what I expected. “Wait, you want to help me? If I help you?”

“Yep.”

I studied his face and couldn’t fully read him. Maybe I was blinded by how hot he was up close, which was embarrassing to admit. He wasn’t pretty or model perfect, but he had a masculine charm I couldn’t pin on any one feature. He’d definitely had his nose broken a few times, and he had a scar along his jaw where stubble didn’t grow. His eyes were a soft blue-gray, darker around the edges of his iris than in the middle.

“Well?” He asked, startling me out of my stupor. “I’ve lived here for years and know all the quirks of this place inside and out. All the criminals, all the hot spots.”

“And what would I have to help you with?”

“I just need access to a supercomputer. Or you can get info for me on one guy.”

“That’s it?” There were so many ways that could go wrong.

“That’s it. I’ve hit a dead end and I can’t dig through all the info I could hack on my less than super computers in less than ten years.”

I shook my head. “Are you nuts? Bruce would kill me. Babs would call Superman to come throw me into deep space.”

“Not if you don’t tell them.”

I snorted. ‘Yeah, sure. Thanks but no thanks.”

“I’m not the murderous gang lord you think I am.” He paused, then smiled. He had dimples, as if he needed more attractive features. “At least not anymore.”

“Still, pass.” I stood up, sweeping food crumbs off myself and crumpling the foil filled with burnt kebab bits. “But thanks for the offer, I guess.”

“I’ll be here if you want to take me up on it” He stood too. He was taller than both Dick and Tim, almost taller than Bruce.

I headed toward the train. “I wouldn’t wait on that.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Stephanie_

Sometimes I wished I had a traditional job so I wouldn’t have to wake up on a Wednesday afternoon, alone in my bed, next to a pile of dirty clothes, a dildo and a vibrator. I had a single slice of leftover pizza on my side table, along with a half-empty bottle of red wine. One of my boobs had popped out of my tank top in my sleep and I didn’t move to put it back in. It was pretty bleak. Though I couldn’t complain—I was technically a Wayne Corp employee, but I didn’t have to actually do anything besides being Batgirl. But sometimes I just wanted to get up and have a routine.

I rolled over onto my back, grabbing my phone. I had three messages—one from my mom, two from Babs. My mom was just wondering if I wanted to come over for dinner, Babs wanted me to come by her headquarters as soon as I was up.

I closed my eyes again, groaning. Babs had sent the messages an hour ago, so she was probably expecting me soon. But getting up was hard. I reached over for my vibrator to give myself a little boost and release some tension. Since Tim and I had broken up, my dreams had been kind of vague but sexy, but last night they had all been about Jason. And all of them had been about 900 times more graphic than my other ones were.

Ugh. At least I wouldn’t have to see him again, unless it was a fight. Then I wouldn’t have to think about how he filled out his t-shirt, or his big hands, or the way he had checked me out when he first saw me. Or his butt, which was surprisingly nice.

I came quickly, though it was mostly due to pent up frustration than the dreams themselves. Tim’s sex drive was (much, much) lower than mine, especially toward the end, so it had been A While since I'd actually gotten laid. Every time Ibrought up that it had been a long time since he’d at least attempted to get in my pants, he acted like I was insane. But when he was in the mood, it was good. Like, I never went home without at least one orgasm and he had a good time. Still, occasional good sex wasn't enough to tape together our crumbling relationship.

Unfortunately Tim was standing next to Babs in front of the computer when I got to her headquarters, looking up at the array of screens with his arms crossed. Why was he even there? Didn’t he have other things to do? 

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” I said, dropping my backpack.

“It’s fine. We’re just going over the Marcia case,” Babs said, glancing at me over her shoulder.

It had been a few days since I’d swept the area and come up with nothing, and we still didn’t have much information. Babs had even cracked into Marcia's computer and her closest's friends social media and didn't find any new information. I thought back to Jason, and wondered if he really could help. I’d checked his file when I got home that night, and it was pretty hefty, going back to the years when he was Robin. The last big thing that Babs had on him (joining a gang, only to destroy them from within) was three years ago. Since then, there wasn’t much aside from a few dozen arrests that he must have arranged and a few reports of gangs being busted up, all within the neighborhood where Marcia lived.

So he had been telling the truth.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t have a bad motive for asking me to help him.

“Did you guys dig up anything else?” I asked, standing next to Babs.

“Sort of.” Babs changed the screens to different feeds. “There was a break-in at Gotham U’s research division last night and some scientific instruments were stolen, specifically ones that have to do with electrical pulses and magnetic fields—Marcia’s stuff. It could just be a coincidence, but it’s a hell of a coincidence.”

Gotham U was close to Jason’s neighborhood, and knowing Gotham, it was probably not a coincidence.

“So you think whoever took her—or whoever convinced her to go—is building a mind control thing already?” I asked.

“Yeah, naturally,” Tim said, giving me that annoying look he tended to give me when he felt like he was right.

My eyes narrowed involuntarily. “‘Naturally?’ It could still be a coincidence. Why assume it’s this one thing rather than exploring all of the possibilities? The people who stole the stuff might not have been the same exact guys who coerced Marcia to go.”

Babs seemed oblivious to the tension in the room. “That’s the problem, though. The thieves weren’t amateurs so we can’t track them well—no fingerprints, altered camera activity, clean escape. Tim tried to gather data from there and came up pretty dry.”

I sighed. “At least we for sure know she left of her own accord, right? Because then she might still be safe.” Unlike a kidnapping victim, whose chances of survival lowered as time went on.

“Wait, open up that feed,” Tim said, pointing at a screen in the corner.

Babs did and turned up the sound. It was the local Gotham news, or Tragedy Hour as I called it because apparently nothing good ever happened in Gotham. An older man and woman were huddled together, holding a picture of a young woman. Just from seeing them from the waist up, I could tell they were loaded.

_“--haven’t heard from their daughter Marcia in a month, and she hasn’t been seen in nearly a week. They fear for the worst,”_ the newscaster said.

_“This is totally out of character for her. She had mentioned that things were…grittier in Gotham_ ,” her mother said. “ _But I never imagined she would go missing like this. Please help us find our daughter.”_

_“The Smith-Goulds are offering a fifty-thousand dollar reward to anyone who can provide pertinent information related to their daughter’s disappearance._ _And now, to Joe, with the weather. Joe?”_

Babs muted the feed again. “That was fast. She hasn’t even been gone a week yet.”

“They seem rich. Maybe overbearing.” I rested my hands on my hips. “So that’s a little stressful, if they’re taking their search to an eleven out of ten right away.”

“Steph, I think you need my help on this one. Missing persons cases are—“

“Urgent. I know, Tim. I literally just said that.” I glared at the back of Babs’s head for a second. Why did she let him in on this case? Unless he was really interested in finding some random Ph.D, it didn't make sense. “And what makes you think I can’t handle this on my own? I’ve done missing people cases on my own before.”

He paused. “I think we just need to progress faster.”

“So you don’t think I can do it alone.”

He paused again, just a millisecond too long for my liking. “It’s just…”

“I see.” I turned to pick up my bag. “Babs, I’m going back to sweep the area tonight. Alone. I’ll report back later.”

Babs sighed “Ok. Tim, give her more time. She’s just as capable as she is on this kind of thing. If it gets dire, you can sweep too.”

I threw my bag on my back and turned to leave. It was like Tim didn’t know me at all. He shouldn’t have acted like I couldn’t do it alone because nothing could motivate me more than that.

 

_Jason_

I needed more to do so quitting smoking would be easier. I was back on the roof, sitting in the lawn chair I’d put up there, drinking a beer between drags and reading a shitty sci-fi novel I’d picked up from a stoop sale. That was the only downside to my life—it could get a little lonely, until I remembered that people were usually more trouble than I wanted to deal with. That was also why I’d rented out the whole top floor of my building, aside from one apartment that belonged to a dude who was never in town.

Which was why it was weird to hear someone pounding on a door on the top floor when my neighbor was definitely gone. I’d left the opening to the stairwell open as I always did, just in case, but that was usually just out of paranoia. I leapt up and quietly made my way down the stairs.

“Hello? Jason?” It was Stephanie banging on the door. She was wearing worn-in skinny jeans, cheap looking Keds, and a blue t-shirt, just like I thought she would wear in her off-time, aside from the fact that she looked freshly fucked. Her hair was loose and messy around her shoulders, and her cheeks and lips were flushed pink. Even her clothes looked like she’d hastily thrown them on.

Jesus.

Oblivious to the dirty path my thoughts were going down, she gave me a little smile and said, “Oh, hi.” Unexpectedly, it caused a stronger reaction in me than her clothing options.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. “How did you know this is where I live?”

She looked me up and down. I was wearing a t-shirt and sweats, nothing weird, so I wasn’t sure what the deal was. “I have my ways. I’m here about your offer.”

“So soon?”

“I reconsidered.” She shrugged.

“Come in.” I unlocked my door and let her in.

My living space was sparse, and cleaner than it had been in a while. I mostly just used my bedroom in this space, and I didn’t sleep much. The other apartments I’d rented out had more of my gear in them—weapons, medical supplies, stuff like that.

She sat on the couch gingerly, like she thought something would jump out at her, and pulled her laptop out of her bag. It was a little weird seeing anyone in my apartment, much less a Bat. Much less a woman, honestly. I never brought women home. It was always their place…or the bathroom of the bar we were in, or her car, if she had one. 

“Want a drink?” I held up my half-empty beer. The only upside to gentrification was the updated beer selection in the bodegas and delis.

“Sure, I guess.” I gave her one and she inspected the label. “Fancy beer.” She raised an eyebrow. It had a tiny scar through it.

“If by fancy you mean not shitty, then yeah,” I said, sitting in the armchair across from the couch.

“Didn’t peg you for a craft beer kind of dude.”

“People generally don’t.” I took a sip of mine. “But I lived in the Wayne manor for a few years so I picked up a few snobby tastes in things.”

She didn’t look like she believed me. “You? Snobby? You live here, what could be snobby about you?”

“Thanks, first of all, for that smart-ass comment on my neighborhood. Second, it’s mostly with beer and a few other things.” Those other things weren’t for her to know. For now, anyway. “Anyway, my offer.”

“Right.” She straightened up a little. “We have to lay down some ground rules. “

“Fine with me.”

“Ok.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, which had piercings all up and down it, some with earrings and some without. “So this can just be between us—no other Bats.”

“That’s what I was planning on anyway. If I even catch a hint of you contacting them about this case, I’m out.”

“Good. And we have to play by Bat rules.”

I paused. “In what sense?”

“No permanent maiming, no killing. Minimal gun usage. Just a little roughing up, maybe.” She took a sip of her beer and put it down. She didn’t seem to like it.

“But what if they deserve it?” I was half-kidding, but she mulled it over.

“Ok, maybe moderate maiming if it’s a life or death situation.” She smiled a tiny bit. “And as for the data you need…”

“I just need as much new information on one guy from one of Barbara’s systems—just this low level criminal who might be trouble down the line. I can’t get deep into the digital weeds on my computer. You can get it for me, if it makes you feel better. I don’t even have to step foot near Barbara’s hideout.”

She picked up her beer and fiddled with the label, still not drinking it. “Ok, fine. But you have to help me all the way before I help you.”

I wasn’t jazzed about that. “Fine, I guess.

“I swear, if I get busted for this, I’m coming to kick your ass.”

I laughed. I knew the kind of training that Bruce put everyone through, but I doubted she could win a fight with me easily. I had a lot of experience, height and weight on her, even though she wasn’t exactly tiny. She came up to my chin, and was nice and sturdy. Strong-looking.

“Want to shake on that?”

“Of course.”

We shook hands.

“Then let’s get started.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading/leaving kudos! Let me know if there's anything that's a little off and I'll edit/adjust later.

_Stephanie_

Jason took a look at all of my files and data on the case on my laptop, leaning back in his armchair, one foot propped on the coffee table. His dark brows furrowed, and he kept biting his thumb nail as his eyes quickly darted across the screen. Observing him in his natural habitat like this was unnerving. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. What would he do, cackle maniacally and shoot a hole in the ceiling as he read?

I let my eyes wander around his apartment. It looked more lived in than I thought it would. He didn’t have a lot of furniture, but it was obvious that he’d done some things with care. His coffee table had a stack of coasters on it (coasters!) and a hoodie was bunched up on the other end of the couch. He didn’t have a TV, but he did have a bookshelf that was surprisingly stuffed with a mix of paperbacks and hardcovers. People contained multitudes and all that, but I expected Jason’s to be more like whittling knives and brooding or whatever. I probably shouldn’t have stereotyped, considering the fact that most strangers would look at me and see slutty gutter trash, but I never would have pegged him as a book nerd in a million years.

His kitchen was open and attached to the living room, and looked old. It didn’t seem like he was the cooking type—some old takeout containers littered the counters, and I didn’t see anything besides a box of cereal in his open pantry. He looked like he needed to eat a whole cow every day to maintain all that muscle. Maybe the fridge was full?

“Can’t believe this,” he mumbled under his breath.

“What?”

“Did Barbara put these files together? Because this file is littered with literary references.”

“Huh? Where? She made the file.” I knew Babs put in her own little personal jokes—a way to keep it amusing, I guess, when reading over case file after case file—but I’d only recognized one or two as book references.

“All over. She did it back when she was Batgirl too. Some Clarice Lispector, some Chekov, Elena Ferrante, too…all sorts of stuff. Are these your smartass little notes?” He turned the computer and pointed to one of my side jokes I’d put into the log also. “Are these Bruce approved?”

“Psh, are you kidding me? Bruce would tell me to rewrite the logs if he were even involved in this. Babs tolerates them, and I add them after she puts together the initial stuff. What’s that one say?”

“‘ _Our homegirl Marcia is single and apparently ‘loving it so much’ according to her Facebook, despite her frequently updated wedding inspo Pinterest board and wedding blog reading._ ’” He looked up at me. “You seriously use the word ‘homegirl’?”

“People say homegirl all the time.” I shrugged. “Or at least I do. Why are you judging me if you use the word ‘yuppie’?”

He cracked a little smile for a moment. “Point taken.”

“I guess my note’s a little harsh though,” I said, half to myself.

“Hm?”

“Nothing. Just thinking I was harsh about her being single and caring about getting married someday, as if we’re not in the same boat.”

He looked confused. “Don’t you have a boyfriend?”

I snorted. “Nope. Single lady all the way. What made you think I had a boyfriend?”

“No, just heard it. You and what’s his face. Tim,” he said, busying himself with the computer again. Was he blushing? That was kind of cute, but this little nugget of gossip was not.

“How’d you know that?” I asked. “We haven’t been together in months.”

“I think half of the vigilantes in Gotham have seen you and Tim groping each other in an alley,” He said. “You guys get off on PDA?”

I literally wished that the floor would collapse and I would drop down into the gutters of Gotham. I tried to sputter out an answer that didn’t sound stupid, but then I felt self-conscious about sputtering and stayed quiet. We shouldn’t have been making out so publicly, but also, what sort of creeps were watching us anyway?

Jason, apparently.

“If it makes you feel better, I only saw you guys once or twice and didn’t linger.” One side of his mouth lifted, like he was shrugging with his face.

“Please, let’s change the subject. Or I’m literally going to die on your couch.” I leaned back and closed my eyes. “I’m heavier than I look and you’d have to hide my corpse.”

“Sorry I brought it up. Let me get back to this.”

Five or so minutes later, he stretched up, revealing a sliver of stomach skin. He had a trail of dark hair that went from under his shirt down into his pants. Ugh, I’d forgotten how much I liked chest hair.“Looks like we’ll have to go talk to someone. Who did you talk to when you were here?”

“No one helpful. Just a bodega cashier and some creep at that hipstery coffee place,” I said.

“No wonder you didn’t get anywhere.” He stood up. “You need to find a gossip, and I know one. Give me a second to get dressed. We’re going to a bar.”

 

 

_Jason_

We needed Patty. Of all the things that had happened to me since I’d come back to life, she was an unexpected bright spot. We met when I was following a suspected serial rapist (turned out he was the right guy—I beat him to a pulp before leaving him for the GCPD to find) and he and friends stumbled into Patty’s. Patty noticed me at the bar, and I learned that she never forgot a face, ever. And she seemed to have eyes everywhere, which was extremely beneficial in moments like this. Somehow, she had a soft spot for me—said I was a good boy, better than the shady types who frequented the bar. I wasn’t sure how she saw that in me, but she tended to see the truth in everyone. I leaned on to her faith in me more than I wanted to admit.

I walked out of my apartment, Stephanie trailing behind me, and turned down a nondescript alley. I pushed on a door that most people didn’t notice unless they were looking for it. It was recessed into a literal hole in the wall. Beyond the first door, there was a short hallway, then another door. It opened up into a surprisingly big bar, music blasting. It wasn’t too busy, but the regulars were all here. Biker types tattooed from head to toe, people with bionic arms and eyepatches, people who were clearly heavily armed. No one met my gaze, but they looked at Stephanie warily. She was like a lightbulb in a pitch black room with her blonde hair and light t-shirt. I hopped up on a stool and slapped the one next to me for Stephanie to take.

“Hey, Patty!” I called down the bar to Patty, who was hard to miss. She was my height and just as broad, but because, as she said, she wasn’t the salad-eating type of gal.

“Well, if it isn’t Little Jay.” She sounded like she’d smoked a pack a day since birth, and I probably wasn’t wrong.

“It’s been a while,” I said, letting her kiss me on the cheek.

“And who’s this?” She looked Stephanie over, analyzing her face, then her outfit.

“This is Stephanie.” I paused, trying to put it simply. “She’s…family.”

“Mm.” She gave me a look, like she clearly didn’t believe me. “So it’s a family deal.”

“You could say that,” I said.

“Where you from, girlie?” Patty asked Stephanie, going behind the taps. She poured two beers, one dark, one light.

Stephanie glanced at me for a second, unsure what to reveal. “I’m from here, over in Chadhaven.”

Chadhaven was a step up from where I had grown up, but it was still a shithole of a neighborhood. I wasn’t the only poor kid Bruce had taken under his wing, then.

“Mm, a local.” Patty slid us each a beer.

“For better or worse.” Stephanie took a tentative sip of her beer.

“What’s been happening around here?” I asked.

Patty poured herself a drink and sat on a stool behind the bar. “What d’you need to know?”

“This girl went missing. You know of a Marcia who’s come around here?” I asked.

“What’s she look like?” Patty asked.

“I have a picture,” Stephanie said. She brushed against me as she leaned over to dig into her back pocket. “This woman.”

Patty took her phone and looked at the picture. Her thin brows furrowed for a second. “Yeah, I’ve seen her, but I didn’t catch her name.”

“Where’d you see her?”

“Saw her buying a bunch of food a week or two ago, and with that jackass Silas who’s always getting drunk in here. Haven’t seen him in a while either.”

“Wait, Silas Young?” I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her right—some dudes were scuffling behind us, their conversation escalating in volume.

“The very one. You know I never, ever forget a face, baby.” She pulled out a cigarette and lit it. I could tell Stephanie was about to say something to her but she decided against it.“Why you wondering?”

“I’ve been looking for him. Was that the last time you saw him?”

“No, he was around the other night, making a ruckus as usual. He squeezed some girl’s ass and she decked him. They fought a little and he said that she wasn’t as hot as his girlfriend or something.” Patty rolled her eyes. “He did mention that he was going to this club the next neighborhood over if anyone wanted to join him as he left. It’s that new-ish place called Primitive, kind of close by. ”

“Did anyone join him?” Stephanie asked.

“One girl did, but I only saw the back of her head. Might have been this chick.” Patty tapped ash onto a coaster. “Unsure what their relationship was, but might be worth a shot.”

I looked at Stephanie and nodded. “Want to check out Primitive?”

“Seems like a good lead.”

“Thanks, Patty.” I slid off my stool.

“Promise to come around again soon, hun?” Patty asked.

“I promise.” I quickly drained my beer.

When I turned to leave, one of the guys who had been fighting a little behind us was towering over Stephanie. He was shitfaced, to put it mildly, beer all over his tight shirt and eyes unfocused. Even if he’d been sober, he would have been a threatening guy. He was even bigger than me, with arms that were probably as thick as Stephanie’s entire body. I stood a few feet back, but close enough to jump in if necessary, even though Stephanie seemed to be unfazed.

“You owe me some ass,” he slurred at Stephanie, reaching out to poke her shoulder. She stepped out of the way. “You been avoidin’ me?”

“I think you have the wrong girl, pal,” she said, slowly backing away. “We’ve never met. Also whoever the girl you’re looking for is, she shouldn’t sleep with you.”

“You know what?” He got right in her face, but she stood her ground. “You females are all the same. All whores, the lot of you.”

“Ugh, when will men learn to not call women ‘females? Or whores,” Stephanie said, looking at me over her shoulder like absolutely nothing was wrong, like she was letting me in on an inside joke. “Listen, we’re going to go now and you’re going to go bother someone else, ok? And drink a Gatorade before you get into bed for that hangover you’re gonna have.”

The guy did not like that answer at all, despite the fact that it was ballsy as hell, and tried to grab Stephanie by the hair. She ducked and took the guy down, leveraging his weight and booze-induced lack of coordination to slam him into a small table. The entire bar went silent for a second before ten guys came forward, all of them in similar clothes and all of them just as drunk and mad as the first guy.

Uh-oh.

“Hey, Steph?” I took her by the shoulder and pulled her back a few steps. “You ever been in a bar fight?”

“Nope, but it’s on my bucket list.” She was cute as hell, especially with that mischievous glint in her eye.

“Seriously? Not seeing the Northern Lights or something?” My hands went to where my holster would have been, but a gun wasn’t there. Thankfully there were a bunch of knicknacks all over the walls I could improvise with.

“That too, I guess!” She ducked again and rolled out of the way as one guy took a swing at her.

The others came in soon after, and surrounded us. They weren’t amateurs, but their drunk swings were making them a little sloppy and more than little unpredictable. But mostly sloppy, thankfully. It would have been an easy fight if there weren’t so many of them.

“How do you want to play this?” Stephanie asked, kicking a guy in the knee hard enough for him to fall, but not be out for the count.

“Improvise? I’m not armed.” I got a good punch in, and caught someone’s leg. I yanked him to the ground.

“They are—you didn’t bring a gun to this knife fight?” She easily got a knife away from one of the men and kicked it across the bar.

I smirked. “Oh wait, I brought two. They’re right here.”

She managed to look at me for a second between kicks, then at my arms. “Oh my god, did you seriously make a ‘gun show’ joke?”

“Yep—watch your 3 o’clock.” I grabbed a stool and knocked one of the guys out with it. When he fell, he took down someone else, who was already wobbly on his feet from one of Stephanie’s punches. Another nearly shot my ear off, but I pushed his arm up and deflected the shot into the ceiling. I would have used his gun to shoot someone’s leg under any other circumstance, but instead I kicked it into the corner of the bar.

Stephanie was holding her own, using the environment to her advantage—throwing vodka in attackers’ eyes, using broken stool legs as escrima. She was skilled, definitely, but she had a lot of street fight in her. Bruce had tried to train it out of me, and had for the most part, but he definitely didn’t get it all out of Stephanie. Her thick thighs weren’t just for show, either. She was kicking gigantic men off their feet, no problem, and holding them in place on the ground while she put them to sleep in chokeholds.

Half the stools and tables nearby were either broken or tipped over at this point, and she climbed her way over them. There was only one guy after her, so what the hell was she doing? I subdued the last guy fighting me easily, and watched Stephanie pull a stuffed deer head off the wall. It wasn’t even attached to a plaque like it probably should have been, but Patty’s wall decor was a little half-assed.

“Ok, bud, let’s not trash this _whole_ place,” she said, raising the deer head high. She brought it down over the man’s head, and he was finally out for the count. She looked at him, smiling, then at me. “Bucket list item, done. With flair, I might add.”

I was a little speechless. And possibly a little (very little) bit in love with her. Where the hell did Bruce find this girl?

Despite what Stephanie had said, the whole place was kind of trashed. People who weren’t in the fight went back to their business. A fight in Patty’s wasn’t news, particularly since no one had been shot.

“Sorry, Patty,” I said, surveying the damage.

Patty sighed, still smoking a cigarette like nothing had happened. “Third fight this week, little Jay. I hardly bother cleaning up anymore. I’ll get someone to do it later. You two get going before these guys wake up.”

We said our goodbyes to Patty and headed outside toward the train station.

“So…” Stephanie moved over so people coming out of the train station could get out. “Primitive, tomorrow night? I’ll research the club a bit so we can have some sort of plan.”

“Sure. Give me your number so I can call you tomorrow.”

She handed me a phone. I put the number for one of my burners in and gave it back to her. I almost never gave anyone my number, even for my burner phones.

“Ok.” She smiled again and tucked her phone back into her pocket before heading down the steps to the train. “See you tomorrow with bells on.”

“With bells on? Seriously? And you got on me for calling you a yuppie?” I called after her.

“Yep!” The last thing I heard was her laughter trailing away.

I needed to wipe the stupid grin off my face.

 


	4. Chapter 4

_Jason_

The line to get into the club Primitive was wrapped around the building, despite the fact that it was getting to be late, just before midnight. If I had to guess, most of the people on line were in college, or just out of it, and spent a lot of money trying to appear richer than they were. Lots of expensive watches and short, tight, shiny dresses. They were just the type to be into the fake glitz of this place. The outside attempted to look expensive, but if you had actually been around expensive things, it looked cheap.

Clubs or bars that attracted this kind of clientele were usually ripe for shady shit, but somehow, this club was a clean business. It was quickly running out of money, though, from a combination of poor management and budgeting. It also didn’t help that their bartenders took a lot of booze as part of their payments and had a heavy hand when pouring the cheap drinks they served. They seemed to be the best bet for getting information, since Silas was Facebook friends with two of them working tonight.

One bartender, Brit, was 22, relatively new to the club, and definitely drinking on the job. Most of her social media posts were about how wasted she was, and how much she missed her college sorority. The other, Brandon was older, around 30, and going through a rough divorce, a “deleted all the pictures of his ex from every social media account he had” kind of rough.

I glanced down the line to see if Steph had missed me, but she still wasn’t there. No text from her either saying she’d be late.

I tried to ignore the girls who were drunkenly deciding whether one of them should ask me to join them on one side and the guys plotting to pick up chicks inside on the other. Both were equally irritating, particularly the guys. Did they really think grinding their boners on strange girls without asking permission was a good plan? I hoped one of them got punched. I would gladly take on the challenge if no one else did.

I hated clubs.

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Stephanie said from behind me.

My brain went offline for a solid second when I turned and took her all in. I knew she had a nice body, but I didn’t know she had the type of body that could make me half-hard just looking at her. She was like a vintage pin-up girl crossed with an athlete—all tits, hips and ass with legs that could break ribs and arms that were clearly put to hard work often. Her red dress wasn’t super short, but it was cut low enough for her cleavage to be front and center. And it was a little tight, showing off every curve. I wanted to do a whole range of dirty things to her that I put the brakes on in my head considering the already half hard thing.

“Ahem,” Stephanie said.

I felt the back of my neck heat up and looked at her face, though that didn’t help because she looked even better wearing red lipstick. “Just wondering where you’re stashing weapons, just in case.”

“They’re all over. Black Canary taught me how to hide things in skimpier outfits than this.” She gestured vaguely to her breasts and thighs. “It’s a friggin arts and crafts project disguised as a dress. Not super comfortable, but whatever.”

“Oh.” I resisted the urge to glance at her again.

“So how are we playing this?” She asked, leaning against the wall with me, flakes of paint falling to the ground at her touch.

“Divide and conquer? You take the guy, I take the girl?”

“Why not the other way around?”

“Flirting tends to work well in these situations, and by most indications, these two bartenders are straight.” I shrugged.

She raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never been around a drunk girl in a bar bathroom line, then.”

I raised an eyebrow back. “I can’t say I have been.”

“Let’s just say there’s a unique bond that only happens when two drunk girls meet in a bar and get talking.” She smiled and pushed herself off the wall. “I’ll take the girl, you take the guy.”

“Fine.”

“I don’t feel like waiting in this line anymore,” she said, grabbing my arm and pulling me out of line.

“He’s been rejecting every group of girls who’s tried this the whole time I’ve been on line. And you've been her like four seconds,” I said.

She glanced back at me and grinned. “But do all those girls have my charm and years of training in human behavior? Nope. Also, hoping the bartender is just as starstruck looking at me in this dress as you were.”

I had to smile at that. She wasn't the type to play coy, which I appreciated. “Well, you clean up good.”

She snorted and pushed her way in front of a group of girls at the front of the line. The bouncer, who was even bigger and more intimidating than I was, looked her up and down, his expression unchanging. He looked like a wall.

“I’m so, so sorry, but do you think you could let us in?” Stephanie asked, cocking her head to the side and raising her voice a half octave or so.“We’re running super late.”

“Late for what?” The bouncer's voice was surprisingly soft.

“Meeting my friend. Brit? The bartender?” Steph leaned forward a little, and the bouncer’s eyes dipped downward to her cleavage for a second. “She was my Little. You know, from my sorority? Delta Nu? I’m in town with my boyfriend and we were trying to surprise her before we went to this other party.”

“Oh, her.” He didn’t seem too pleased. “You gonna get her to put down that damn bottle and keep her shit together?”

“I’m a pro at helping her keep her shit together.” She laughed. “Think of it this way—you guys get the benefit of her being sober on the job, and we get to see her for a quick second. We’ll be in and out before you know it.”

He paused, glancing at her and then at me.

“Sure, whatever.” He stepped aside, and everyone in the line protested. “Don’t fuck things up. We’re violating fire code by letting you in. This guy the boyfriend?”

“Yeah, he is.” Stephanie pulled me through the door before either the bouncer or I could say anything about the boyfriend thing. “Thanks!”

Stephanie got into the club easily, but the bouncer grabbed me by the arm.

“You gonna pay that cover charge, man?” He asked.

I sighed heavily and dug out my wallet, shoving cash into his hand. He nodded a thank you and I kept on walking. The inside of the club was just as cheap as the outside. It reeked for bad cologne, sweat, and alcohol, and the music—some song so old and overplayed that even I knew it—was pounding so loudly that I could hardly hear myself think. A promoter for an alcohol brand shoved a shot in a plastic cup into my hands and yelled for me to take it. There wasn’t really a place to dump it, and he insisted, so I downed it. It was some sort of terrible flavored vodka. Berry? Lemon? Both? 

By then, I’d lost Steph in the thick crowd spilling off from the dance floor. Thankfully I could easily spot her from above, her blond bun and red dress catching the flashing green and blue lights. Almost like choreography, guys she walked past stopped and did The Turn—staring at her face when she was walking toward you, and turning to stare at her ass once she was past you. Judging by the crowd outside, there was a strong possibility of some asshole steering us off course by rubbing his junk all over her. Not that I doubted her ability to handle the situation, but better to nip it in the bud before she had to punch some guy and cause a scene. I pushed past a few people to catch up with her and grabbed her arm. She was startled, but relaxed when she saw it was me, though she definitely tensed again when I pulled her close into my arms. She was about to open her mouth to say something, but I leaned close to her ear and cut her off.

“Every dude in here is looking at you like you’re a piece of meat. If we don’t make clear that we’re together, we’re going to have unwelcome distractions. No dude is going to try to approach you if you’re with someone.”

She raised her eyebrows and laced her fingers behind my neck. “Thanks for coming to my rescue, I guess.”

“It’s not a ‘rescue’. I’m just being practical.” But if I was being honest, just touching her once made me want to touch her again and again.

She gave me a little smile that told me she thought I was bullshitting her, at least a little. But even though she knew, she didn’t protest. She started dancing, slipping a little closer to me. I could smell the cheap vodka we got at the door on her breath.

“Nice job getting us in back there, by the way,” I said, breaking the pause. “You should be glad that guy clearly never saw _Legally Blonde_. Delta Nu? Really? Not particularly creative.”

She laughed loud enough for a couple next to us to look over. “Wait a minute, you caught that? So _you’ve_ seen _Legally Blonde_?”

“I haven’t, but believe it or not, I haven’t completely tuned out of pop culture from the past fifteen years. Despite the whole dead thing.”

She shook her head. “You’re full of surprises, you know that, Jay?”

My nickname rolled off her tongue naturally, like she’d been calling me Jay all her life.

Saying she was full of surprises was kind of pushing it, but she definitely wasn’t what I expected. She was warm and easy to laugh, not cold and hard-edged and smart-ass jokes. I guess I had projected my own shit onto her since we had similar backgrounds--born broke, rough time conforming to what Bruce wanted us to be as Robin, dying, coming back, all that garbage. But that still didn’t explain the good gut feeling I had when I talked to her. My gut feelings were usually more like “maybe you should kill this guy,” not “maybe you should trust this girl.”

The song shifted to another and Steph squeezed my shoulders in excitement. “Oo, I love this song. One last dance and then we can get started.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously. Do you know how rarely I go dancing? Let a girl have some fun.”

She was instantly lost in the song and I tried not to stare. But it was damn hard with the smooth skin of her throat exposed, a little sweat dripping down between her breasts. Her body heat made her perfume even more fragrant—it was mostly flowery, with hints of musk and sex. I didn’t want to envy Tim, but the fact that he’d fucked Stephanie regularly for years made me burn with jealousy.

“C’mon!” She finally noticed me again and pulled my arms around her back. “Dance with me. You took a shot at the door, didn’t you? You should be a little loose.”

“One shot is pretty much nothing for me.” I swallowed hard when her breasts brushed my chest.

“Well, I’m a lightweight so I’m a little loose. That was the first shot I’ve had since like, high school.” She shimmied a little when she said loose. “Not too loose though. Just enough. Good for conversation later.”

I accidentally pressed up against her fully when a small group came onto the dance floor behind me.She didn’t move back, and put her arms around me again, grinding against me ever so slightly with a smile. I tentatively slid my hands lower, just above her ass, and brushed her hips against mine again.

“You’re a decent dancer, you know. It’s kind of cute,” Steph said about halfway through the song.

“Cute?” I had to laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever been cute. Also, you know who I am and what I do, right? Not exactly adorable.”

“I’m sure you were an adorable baby at least. Look at those curls.” She gently tugged on one of the curls that had fallen into my forehead, right next to my white streak. I didn’t know what I had looked like as a baby—not a single picture was left. “I bet half the girls in Gotham would kill for them. Myself included.”

“Your hair is fine the way it is.” I wanted to tuck a bit of her stray hair behind her ear, but knew the gesture would be too intimate for both the situation and for my personal comfort. I realized we were staring at each other intensely, so I cleared my throat and said, “I think I’m going to go get started.”

“Right.” She dropped her arms from my around my neck like I was hot and went toward the bar that Brit was tending.

 

_Stephanie_

What the hell was that? The look he gave me was impossible to read, but I knew how it made me feel—boneless and flushed. Which was on top of how being in his arms felt, which I was trying to burn into my memory. He was built like a freakin’ truck. And I expected him to be all hard muscle like Tim was (well, hard muscle and bones), but he had a soft little layer of chub over his muscles like I did. Now I understood why girls who were barely over five feet tall only wanted to date dudes over six feet tall.He felt like an enormous teddy bear. The rumble of his voice in my ear too? I still felt goosebumps from it.

I managed to mostly pull it together by the time I got to the bar to talk to Brit, and flopped on a stool. I must have still looked lost or confused or something because Brit came right over to me. She was definitely already a little tipsy, or at least she just looked it in her eyes. Her brown hair was in a lopsided bun that said "I don't give a shit" (my usual look), and her eyeliner had made its way halfway down her cheekbones. Unlike in her file that Jason had sent me, she’d gotten a few piercings since her sorority days. In fact, if I didn’t know about her and someone had told me that she was doing the sorority squat wearing a pink mini-dress and perfect makeup not long ago, I would have thought they were flat out lying.

“Hey, hun,” Brit shouted over the music, grinning at me. She had a husky voice, like she was just getting over a cold. Also, we were almost the same age—did she have to call me ‘hun?’ “What’s up? What can I get you?”

“Oh, um…just…anything,” I said, quickly skimming the menu. I immediately regretted not saying something low on booze. I’d eaten half a granola bar and one egg since I had woken up, so my tolerance was even lower than usual.

“Looks like you’ve been having a rough night, so I’ll fix you something special.” She winked at me, her eyebrow piercing winking in the light, and scooped some ice into a cup. She mixed two drinks—vodka went in there, some soda, and a few more things I didn’t quite catch—and put them both on the bar. She took one and raised it.

“Cheers.” We clinked glasses. The drink was surprisingly good and didn’t seem boozy at all, so I took a few long sips. “I must look rough if you made me this.”

“Unwritten bartender job description—helping people out with a little therapy. Liquid or otherwise.” She shrugged and leaned forward onto the bar, resting on her elbows. “Is it a guy? Because I can get him thrown out. I’ve thrown out like five in the past two days alone”

I laughed. “No, it’s not a dude. Well, directly. I’m just worried about my friend who has a new boyfriend. He’s kind of a dick in a way that makes me scared for her. I know she used to come here a lot, so I decided I’d try to catch her here since she’s not answering my texts.”

“That sucks, I’m sorry. She was a regular? I’m good with faces.” She seemed overly eager to help, which might have been suspicious if she hadn’t been so easy to read. This was probably one of the more exciting things to happen to her in a while.

“I think she said she was.”

“Hm…” Brit knocked back the rest of her drink in a few smooth swallows and I did the same. “What’d she look like?”

I described her.

“Mm, did she have an accent? Like, not Gotham?” She kneeled behind the bar. “Someone left a purse behind last night and that sounds like it might be her.”

I had no idea if she did, but I said, “Yeah, she did.”

“Aha!” Brit pulled a purse out from under the bar and plopped it down. “This purse look familiar?”

It was one of the fancier brands that wasn’t so fancy that an average person couldn’t buy it—Coach or something. “Yeah, it does! Is her license in there or something? She’s always losing it and doesn’t remember until she has to drive.”

Brit dug right into the bag, and eventually came up with a wallet and license. “Yep! Your friend is…Alicia Gray?”

She gave me the license. It was a picture of Marcia, or at least someone who was the spitting image of her, but the name on the license was indeed Alicia Gray.

“Yeah, it’s her!” I said, forcing myself to smile. “Mind if I take this? Maybe I can get her attention if I tell her I have her purse.”

“Yeah, go nuts. I don’t give a shit.” She pushed the bag across to me. Thank god she wasn’t a rule follower. “I mean, about whether you take the purse. People lose shit all the time and no one comes to claim it. I’ve gotten like four Chanel lipsticks that way.”

I quickly scanned the contents of the purse—nothing immediately alarming like a knife or a gun.

“Want another drink? On the house?” Brit asked, pulling out two new glasses and waving them around.

I glanced over at the other bar across the way, and saw Jason in an awkward conversation with Brandon. He needed to be rescued.

“No, it’s cool—need to go. Thanks for the drink and the purse. I’ll let Alicia know you helped.” I went to stand up and _holy shit I was pretty drunk_. “Uh, what was that drink by the way? It was…good.”

“A little concoction of mine. It’s like Long Island iced tea and a Cosmo had a baby. Good, right? You can’t even taste the alcohol,” she said, glancing down the bar at someone else.

Oh, great. I had maybe one drink per month, and that was a glass of wine, and I’d probably had the equivalent of four alcoholic drinks in the span of half an hour. This was definitely not good.

“It’s so good. Thanks!” I gave her a weak smile and walked slowly over to Jason, feeling the room tilt ever so slightly to my left.

As I got closer, I could hear Brandon talking about a woman, his ex-wife I presumed. He was in the sad-but-angry-but-mostly-sad phase of his divorce, I guessed. Jason was patiently listening, even though he was clearly dying to get out of the situation. He spotted me out of the corner of his eye and visibly relaxed until he saw in my eyes that I was not 100%.

“Oh, hey,” he said to me, standing up. He turned to Brandon. “Nice meeting you man, hope things get better.”

“Yeah.” Brandon sighed heavily and took Jason’s empty beer glass. “Thanks.”

“C’mon, let’s leave,” he said into my ear, gently guiding me toward the closest door by my upper arm. “Did you manage to get drunk in the span of a half hour?”

“Long story, will explain. You going to explain that awkwardness I saw with Brandon?” I pushed past a cluster of girls arguing about where to get pizza while staring at their phones.

“Yeah, not that any good intel came from it. And this purse—good lead?” He finally got us to the door and got me outside.

“Oh yeah.” The fresh air was making me feel a little bit better, but I was still feeling it hard. “Can we get some food? Like preferably a dump truck filled with hash browns?”

“Maybe not a dump truck filled with hash browns, but maybe a plate full of ‘em so you don’t puke all over the sidewalk.” He caught me as I stumbled over the tiniest crack in the sidewalk. “You definitely weren’t kidding about the lightweight thing, were you?”

 

_Jason_

By the time we got to the diner, she looked like she had been pounding shots in a frat house all night. Not that the rest of the people in there were looking any better. I liked this diner because someone could literally walk in in a horse costume, order pancakes, and eat them without a fork and no one would bat an eye. So whenever I came in with a black eye and someone else’s blood on my jacket, I blended right in.

We got settled in a booth and ordered food, which she quickly downed without coming up for air. After she pounded two glasses of water and a coffee, she relaxed into the booth and quietly burped. Her knees brushed against mine, but she didn’t move them. Her eyes fluttered closed in contentment.

“I’m about 70% better. Remind me to never drink again. Or let me just chug drinks like they’re orange juice,” she said.

“Noted, Princess Lightweight. What’s this purse you grabbed?” I asked, ignoring the look she gave me at the new nickname I’d given her.

“Oh, right.” She put the purse on the table and dumped out its contents. There was a wallet, a bunch of lipsticks, some jumbled up receipts, a notebook, and tampons. Steph grabbed the tampons and took them off the table. “So, the most interesting thing is the ID. It has Marcia’s picture, but the name on there is Alicia Gray.”

“You sure it’s her?” I took the wallet and opened it. Sure enough, it was the spitting image of Marcia. There was a gift card to Sephora in there, and a punch card to some coffee shop, but otherwise it was empty.

“It definitely looks like her. I need to run a scan on the image to see if it pops up anywhere else.” She burped again, and groaned. “But what do you think the deal is?”

I rustled through the rest of the things from the purse. The receipts didn’t tell me much—they were for groceries, tampons, and some fast food. I put them aside to track the location later. Steph was fiddling with the lipsticks, opening the caps and checking the colors.

“I don’t remember Marcia wearing lipstick in any of her photos.” She turned over a tube to look at the bottom. “I’ll see if I can get any useful DNA from these. What about the notebook?”

I flipped through it. There wasn’t much, aside from a list of dates. All of them had passed aside from one a week and a half from today.

“Can you cross-reference these dates? Maybe they link up to some of the break-ins that have been happening.” I pushed the notebook across to her. “And can you run all that other data on the lipstick and the ID? I actually have a job tomorrow so I’ll be tied up for a bit.”

“A job?” She started tucking the stuff back into the purse.

“You don’t want to know.” I had to assassinate a wealthy heir of some important European corporation, who was slowly trying to corrupt the highest levels of his country’s government. He also happened to be making a shitload of money in a human trafficking ring on the side, which was the main reason I’d taken on the job. That and three million dollars transferred to my off-shore bank account, to be split 50/50 with Roy, who was helping with the mission.

She was still too tipsy to conceal her expressions well, so I caught a glimpse of disappointment in her eyes. “Oh.”

“Hey, you didn’t say I couldn’t do my regular thing outside of this investigation we’re on.” I flagged down the waiter, who wordlessly put our check down on the table. “And why do you automatically assume it has to do with murder?”

“I didn’t say murder.” She reached into her bra and pulled out some cash. “So I’m guessing it’s murder.”

“Assassination.” I pulled out money too, and put down the full amount before she could. “There’s a difference.”

“Is there?” She counted my cash and put her money back into her bra. “Thanks for the food.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

We walked outside and down the block, not saying a word to each other. It was late enough for the streets to be mostly empty and for most of the stores to be closed. Some of the street lights were out, which gave the area a seedy feel. It wasn’t too bad, though, in comparison to a lot of Gotham—there were trees along the sidewalk and only a little bit of trash on the ground.

“Listen, Jay…” She finally said, stopping abruptly. She was a lot more put together with the food in her, but she was still weaving across the sidewalk a bit. “I get your whole approach to this…business. The only reason I asked to stick to Bat rules was because I’m afraid of getting the boot from Bruce if anyone finds out. I didn’t mean to judge you.”

I tucked my hands into my pockets, mulling that over in my head. “If you get my approach, then why stick with the Bats?”

She sighed through her nose. “I feel like I’d need an hour to tell you why and I’m guessing you don’t want to stand out here and listen to me ramble on about justice and my fucked-up relationship with my dad.”

I felt my mouth twitch into a little smile. “I’d be interested in hearing the shortened version.”

“I can tell you if you walk me home. I’m like a twenty minute walk away and I really don’t feel like fighting off any potential muggers all by myself.”

She started walking and I followed.

“Wait a second, I need to fix my heel.” She wrapped a hand around my bicep and dug into the heel of her shoe, using me as a support. When she finished, she kept her hand on me for a second, clearly trying to stop the drunk spins that must have been hitting her hard. I looked up, praying she wouldn't puke on me.

But Tim, who I saw coming around the corner in civvies, clearly thought we were up to something else. We locked eyes for a moment before Steph realized what was happening.

So much for keeping this arrangement under wraps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blending a bunch of random canon parts together (like Roy and Jason being buds)--hope y'all don't mind.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, sorry this took a century to update. Thanks for the kudos and comments (esp the comments :3). I legit rewrote the first half of this chapter 9000 times, all while I was super busy, then I finally pulled it together bit by bit. Hope you enjoy~

_Steph_

We all stared at each other for a solid moment, not a single sound passing down the long, deserted street. Tim was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, his backpack heavy on his back. As usual, he looked tired, especially under the yellowish glow of the streetlights. He always had dark circles under his eyes, no matter how much sleep he got, but they looked particularly bad tonight, like he had been punched. Maybe he had been punched and was healing from it—who knew? We hadn’t really spoken since the last time I saw him in the cave.

I resisted the urge to ask him whether he was taking care of himself. For someone so smart he was terrible at basic things like sleeping and eating a vegetable every once in a while. I probably hadn’t helped by going into Nurture Mode sometimes when we were dating. I was always there to force pizza down his throat and pin him down in the bed until he finally fell asleep. Without me, who knew how he even did.

Tim’s eyes quickly scanned my body, then rested on my hand on Jason’s arm. Even though he was good at keeping his face neutral, I could sense a twinge of displeasure in his eyes, just for a second. I wasn’t sure which of many things that were going on annoyed him—my dress, my hand on Jason’s arm, the fact that Jason was even there—but either way, his annoyance sparked my own. I took my hand off of Jason’s arm.

Finally, I blurted, “What the hell are you doing here, Tim?”

“I was investigating an old crime scene nearby to see if GCPD missed anything. A favor for Dick. ” He looked from me to Jason, and back again, annoyance crossing his face again. “Why are you guys here?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but Jason beat me to it.

“Steph asked me for some help on your missing person case. I know the neighborhood in and out and helped her get some intel that she needed. We were just coming from a club where we got some good leads. Don’t leap to the worst conclusion,” Jason said, his voice harsh and deep.

How long had it been since he had interacted with Tim (or Dick, or Bruce, or Damian)? He looked like someone had flipped a switch inside him from Jason to Red Hood. His posture got defensive and tension rippled through him in waves.

Tim mulled over Jason’s words, his weight shifting from one foot to another. “Oh. Well, thank you.”

I saw Jason visibly relax out of the corner of my eye, followed by a look that clearly said _what the fuck?_ I felt the same way.

Then again, their relationship seemed to be the definition of It’s Complicated. Jason’s persona non grata status was never explicitly stated anymore, just heavily suggested—if anyone ever brought him up, especially around Bruce, the conversation trailed off or someone reiterated that we didn’t use lethal tactics.I knew Tim took major issue with Jason’s brutal methods but never badmouthed his personality or anything. I wasn’t sure how they got along as people or if there was something there I didn’t know about.

But even if Tim didn’t hate him, Jason definitely felt something toward him based on that little emotional rollercoaster he was clearly on. I wanted to comfort him or help him calm down, even though I knew he would 100% not be into that. He might have been the black sheep of the family, but the whole not-talking-about-your-actual-feelings trait ran deep with everyone.

“Never thought I’d hear you thank me for anything.” Jason snorted, regaining his composure. He finally stepped away from me. “What’s the catch?”

“Why does there have to be a catch?”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “You can be a real weasel sometimes, so why wouldn’t I be suspicious? What do you want from me?”

“A weasel?” Tim looked mildly offended, even though it was kind of true. He was creepily good at manipulating situations in his favor if he wanted to. “I don’t want anything from you. We were hitting dead ends on that case, so it’s good that you two got leads.”

Jason clearly didn’t believe him. “Mmhm.”

“It’s true. Can’t we at least try to work together a bit from time to time?” Tim asked.

“Wait, what?” I blurted. “Since when—“

“You’re only saying that because you’ve been tracking me, right?” Jason said, laughing without his smile reaching his eyes.

Tim didn’t say anything.

“Of course. You can’t just take me at my word when I say that I’m trying to not kill people like they’re ants or blow up Gotham.” He looked genuinely, deeply hurt for the tiniest fraction of a second, so emotionally open that I felt a lurch in my own heart. He pulled it together quickly, but I doubted I could un-see that look on his face. I wanted to grab his hand, but I decided against it.

“Jason—“ Tim started.

“Whatever, I should go. Let’s keep this between us, understood?” Jason said, looking between us. Tim and I both nodded, though I didn’t know if Tim would actually hold up his end of the bargain. “I’ll call you when I’m back, Steph.”

He looked at Tim for another moment, then at me with a look of worry so intense that my heart flipped over in my chest. Why was he worried about me? Not that I minded, but if he could undo me with a look, I’d probably die if he actually expressed his feelings in words.

Then he left, ducking into an alley and climbing up the fire escape.

Tim and I stared at each other in a daze for what felt like a solid five minutes. Somehow it felt like it was longer than the (admittedly short and kind of exhausting) conversation we had just had.

“So you have leads?” Tim finally asked, looking at me as if nothing had happened. How was he able to do that so quickly? I guessed it was because he never really processed his feelings and just shoved them down, which was handy when he was in situations like this.

“Yeah, a few big ones.”

“Want to go back to my safe house and look into them? Or at least, uh, sober up? I have one a few blocks over.”

I was still feeling tipsy, so any research I did probably wasn’t going to be productive. But sobering up a few blocks from here was better than walking twenty minutes home.“Sure, I guess.”

We walked over to his safe house in silence. I had been to this one before—we frequently stayed over here during long missions since it was easy to get to and comfortable. The outside looked a little sketchy, but the inside was pleasantly neutral like a hotel room. There was a plain brown couch, a coffee table, and a regular table, plus a bedroom with a comfy bed, a small kitchen, and a bathroom down a short hallway. Tim had obviously been there a lot recently because there were a ton of empty frozen pizza boxes in the recycling and the air smelled like coffee.

I then realized how close to naked I was when I noticed that Tim was pointedly not looking at me, busying himself with unpacking his backpack at the table. He had always been a little too shy to check anything other than my face out, even when I wasn’t looking, especially now that we weren’t together. I figured I could make it easier on both of us and went to the bedroom to find something I could put on. With the whole multiple safe houses thing, I hadn’t been able to gather all of my crap from Tim’s various living spaces. I found a big t-shirt of mine (Tim’s t-shirts couldn’t fit over my boobs without stretching out significantly) and some sweats and put them on.

When I went back out to the living room, I found Tim sitting at the table, going over photos of something on his laptop. There was an extra laptop (his back-up, I guessed), sitting across from him on the table, along with a big bottle of Gatorade and some crackers. I took a peek over his shoulder and saw that the photos he was looking at had nothing to do with the Marcia case.

“You can use my extra laptop, if you’re up for doing some research. And that Gatorade is for you,” he said, not taking his eyes off his screen.

I was oddly touched, even though the drink and crackers weren’t a big deal. “Thanks.”

I took the seat across from him, pounding the Gatorade and some crackers, waiting for him to say something to me about what had just happened. But he just kept working, scanning the screen and frowning from time to time. I put the purse on the table and opened the laptop.

“Aren’t you going to say something about what happened?” I finally asked.

Tim finally looked up, confused. “I wanted to give you space to do the investigation since you seemed upset when I tried to help last time. And Jason’s right—we should keep this whole thing between us.”

“Oh.” I slowly opened the laptop screen, as if I could get anything done. “That makes my life a lot easier, then.”

He paused, clearly searching for the right words. “I’m not saying it should be secret just because Jason said so. Dick tried to reconcile with him about a year ago. It didn’t exactly go according to plan, so Jason’s even more distant than he was. There was a second there when we honestly thought we could work things out.”

“What happened? How did Dick approach him?”

Tim bit his bottom lip, which he always did when he was trying to put something in the right words. “It was happening sort of organically. Dick and I would run into Jason, Jason eventually started talking to us—even though at first it was just him being a snarky asshole. But then Dick tried to push the issue and start a conversation about Jason coming back to the family. Jason blew up at him. He said Dick was being too pushy about it, and that I was a manipulative piece of crap for tagging along. Basically, the confrontation ended with Jason cussing Dick out then trying to beat the shit out of both of us before we got away. It wasn’t worth fighting him, so we’ve left him alone ever since.”

“That wasn’t in his file.”

“I know. I took it out. We thought it might cause more trouble than it was worth if Bruce caught on,” Tim said.

“But why? Why can’t Bruce just talk to Jason—wait.” I paused. “Bruce. Talking about a feeling.”

“Yeah, I know.” Tim cracked a tiny smile. “The crapfest that bringing up the Jason issue would unleash wouldn’t help anyone.”

I felt myself sag with relief, knowing everything. I could never bring this up with Jason unless I wanted to lose whatever trust he’d built up wth me.“Thanks, Tim. I appreciate all of this.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He busied himself with clearing food crumbs off his laptop. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

I grinned, feeling more relaxed around him than I had in a while. “Yeah.”

 

_Jason_

“Hey, you. Sorry I’m a little late.” Steph said as she slid into the booth at the same shitty diner where we’d gotten her drunk food after we went to Primitive, tossing her backpack in the booth first. It was around dinner time, but we were two of five people in the place, including the wait staff. They were clustered closer to the door, far away enough for us to have private conversations. And I’d checked the place for bugs—all clear.

“It’s cool.” I closed my book and studied her face for a second. She was wearing a shitload of makeup that didn’t look terrible, but didn’t look like she had willingly chosen to put it on. Lots of glittery eyeshadow and baby pink lip gloss. “Where’d you come from? A beauty pageant in Kentucky?”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “No, from a makeup test that the makeup artist clearly failed.”

“Makeup test?”

“My mom’s getting remarried. The wedding’s in a few months and we had to go test out the makeup look.” She rolled her eyes. “Her fiance’s a nice guy but god, his daughter drives me insane. I’m mom’s maiden of honor or whatever and Hannah—mom’s fiancé’s daughter slash my future stepsister—is her bridesmaid. Hannah’s highjacked the planning, half out of love for my mom and half to fulfill her sick, Pinterest fueled fantasies.”

“Jesus.” I put my book next to me on the seat. “That’s so…normal and weird.”

“Mm?”

“Normal in the sense that your mom getting remarried is something that happens to a lot of people. Weird in that you’re a vigilante, and you even have a mom who’s miraculously alive and close with you. And who knows your alter ego.”

“I mean, yeah. But it was super touch and go for while when I was a knocked up teenage vigilante who didn’t know what the hell she was doing and she was popping pills all the time. Then Mom decided to go beyond just getting clean and all the way into Oprah levels of self-actualization. She goes to yoga and wears knitted shawls to her book club and all that.” Her gaze softened and she smiled. “It’s been good for her. She’s like, half the reason I do what I do—there’s always hope that people can turn it around. Well, most people.”

It was a little startling, talking to someone who had clearly been through some shit who was so optimistic. It didn’t feel put on, either. She honestly, truly believed what she was saying. It was even more startling that realizing that about her made my chest feel a little pleasantly tight, like a sore muscle after a workout, instead of mildly revolted and irritated, which would have been par for the course for me.

I cleared my throat and took a sip of the terrible coffee I’d ordered, changing the subject. “So, the case.”

“Right, right. Got a lot of juicy deets on this fake Marcia chick.”

“Juicy deets?” I raised an eyebrow.

“You know, juicy details?” She pulled out her laptop, grinning. “Or are you teasing me over my slang again, you old man?”

I burst out laughing before I could stop myself. “Old man? Seriously? I’m what, a year or two older than you? Including the whole time I was dead thing.”

“You like old man shit.” She shrugged, like this was common information. She’d been to my place, but it wasn’t like I had hard candies out on the table and prune juice in the fridge.

“I don’t like old man shit.”

“Then what’s up with the Hemingway you’ve got there on the seat next to you?” She raised an eyebrow back at me, her smile turning cheeky. I liked what it did to her lips, glittery lip gloss and all. She had a cute little gap between her two front teeth too that added a quirky sex appeal to her smile.

“The Old Man and the Sea is a classic.” Sure, the book was a little dry unless you dug into its themes and really _read_ it. And dealt with an elderly man doing some old man stuff…and this was my third time reading it.

Ok, maybe she wasn’t wrong. But just about my taste in books.

“Old man is _literally_ in the title. Embrace your inner old man. It’s kinda sexy and unexpected.” She tapped a few keys on her laptop.

“Fine, I guess you have a point,” I said, trying to keep the dumb smile off my face as I processed the fact that she said I was sexy.

She looked pleased and surprised. “You’re saying I’m right? That you’re an old man on the inside? Is that where that white streak in your hair comes from? A little old man trying to sneak out?”

“I’m saying you’re half-right.” I shrugged and smirked, hoping it came across as playful. I didn’t really smirk playfully anymore. “I’m kinda sexy.”

She laughed so loudly that someone across the diner turned and looked at her. “I walked into that, didn’t I?”

“You ran right into it, head-on.”

She gave me a look that I couldn’t quite decipher, a little bit of her wide smile remaining on her face. Her posture shifted a bit, maybe subconsciously, so her breasts were pushed forward. Or maybe I was just hoping she was doing that purposefully instead of just adjusting on the uncomfortable booth seat. Either way, looking at her definitely sent a nice warmth southward on my body. It had been a long time since I’d felt such a strong pull of attraction toward a woman without acting on it immediately. The tension was kind of enjoyable, but I wasn’t going to last too much longer.

“Anyway, the lipstick, those dates, and the ID,” she said, breaking my gaze. Her cheeks were abruptly red. “I ran the ID info and the ID photo—they both belong to a woman named Alicia Gray.”

She showed me the photo of Alicia. She looked kind of like Marcia, maybe like they were cousins. Alicia looked a little older, a little more tired.

“ _But_ I searched for Alicia Gray at that address and came up with a dead woman. Dug through more records associated with Alicia Gray, and she’s still dead.”

“So identity theft or we have to investigate a death.” I pulled her laptop a little closer to my side of the table.

“I’m thinking identity theft. I ran the lipstick and came up with DNA from this little gem.” She hopped up and slid onto my side of the booth, her thigh pressed up to mine. She opened a different photo, who looked very similar to Alicia Gray and Marcia. Different hair, different makeup, though. “Roxanne Wilde, two counts of identity theft, three counts of embezzlement, and one of bigamy.”

“Bigamy’s not one I come across a lot.” I leaned in, feeling the heat from her arm radiating onto mine.

“I know, right? She married one man in Massachusetts under a false identity, stole a shitload of money from his company, then ran away and got married some other guy in New Jersey under a different false identity before the divorce was finalized. She managed to wrangle out of additional jail time for the bigamy thing, but not the embezzlement or identity theft. But before she could go to jail, she fell off the grid.”

“And appeared in Gotham. But why?” I took over the laptop and started going through the data.

“That’s what we need to find out. The dates on the notepad in the purse correlate with break-ins at various facility—one of which was at Gotham U, which we tried to gather info on. There wasn’t much there.”

“When’s the next break-in?”

“Day after tomorrow, ass crack of dawn in the morning—4:00AM. Based on the latitude/longitude info on the back side of the paper, should be here.” She took the laptop back and pulled up some blueprints. “It’s this building toward the edge of town.”

I skimmed the blueprint. It looked straight-forward enough; we could easily get into the building and watch the break-in, intervening if it seemed like a good idea.

“I can put together a plan for us to monitor the break-in—might be the best idea since trying to gather info after the fact didn’t work out so well. It’ll probably just be a stakeout, but we might want to come prepared.” I made a note on my phone.

“Full stealth mode?” She brightened. “I’ve got some cool new gadgets I wanna try.”

“Sure, I guess. I’ll bring what I’ve got and you bring your stuff,” I replied.I started adding more of what we’d need and where my closest safe house was to my mental list. “We can prepare the space tomorrow evening, rest up, then wait. And pray this isn’t some sort of dead-end.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took forever and ever to update, and thanks for the kudos/comments! 
> 
> does the fact that this chapter is hella long (definitely) and steamy (to you, hopefully) make up for the delay or nah

_Jason_

It was going to be a clean and easy stakeout despite the looming thunderstorm that was probably going to hit us right in the middle of the mission. We had to link the building’s existing camera set-up with ours so we could see what was going on without their security people thinking anything was up when they came to work in the morning. Then we could slip away and observe from a good distance, jumping in if anything started getting serious. On the upside, the building's management cut the budget so they didn’t have a night guard past midnight, making it even easier. But on the downside, the building’s layout was a little difficult to cover adequately just because of its size, but it wasn’t so tough that we couldn’t handle it.

So why was I so fucking nervous? I kept looking at myself in the mirrors of my motorcycle as I waited for Steph to come to our meeting spot a quarter mile from the building, adjusting my hair. My curls had flattened from my bike helmet and the humidity was making it impossible to lie normally no matter what I did. Since we were trying to be stealthy, I couldn’t hide under my Red Hood helmet, which was practically a bright red target at this point. Maybe I was nervous because I was tired—it was early, and I hadn’t slept much.

Soon Steph came rolling up on a silent motorcycle with the purple bat symbol emblazoned on the side, her blonde hair trailing out of the back of her helmet.

“Hey, hey,” She said after she came to a stop and removed her helmet. She had a domino mask on as well, the lenses open to reveal her brown eyes. I felt a dumb twist in my stomach when she smiled at me and did my best to ignore it. I turned my attention to her motorcycle, which was a beauty in itself. It was sleek, painted in a dark, matte color that made it blend in with the streets, with the purple lights around the wheels. It was clearly packing a powerful motor based on the way she’d zoomed over.

“Nice ride.” I walked closer to her to inspect it. “Lots of nice toys these days, huh?”

“Oh yeah.” She grinned. “You don’t even know the half of it. I’ve got a lot in this belt.”

“Forget the belt. This bike…” I ran my fingers along the seat and sighed despite myself. “I miss the rides that came with being Robin.”

“Your bike’s not bad,” she said.

“Yeah, but it’s not this. I don’t get how you could go anything less than 70 miles per hour on that thing.” I took a glance at the wheels. “Or in any of Bruce’s vehicles. He has twenty beautiful luxury cars, at least, and he takes them out maybe once to impress some model and leaves them in the garage to collect dust.”

Steph smirked. “I’m guessing you didn’t really let them collect dust.”

I laughed. “Are you kidding me? I took his cars on joyrides so often that I was surprised he didn’t just give me the keys to all of the cars to save me the trouble.”

“Tell me more about Bruce’s inexplicable decisions later? We should probably get inside before it starts to pour.” She pulled out a small tablet with a radar showing on the screen. "This’ll detect if we're alone or not. Building’s empty, so we’re good to go.”

We tucked the bikes in a safe place behind some empty shipping containers before heading closer to the building. I visually scanned the building's back as I pulled out my own small tablet to check out the blueprint. I held in a yawn. Not a great sign if my adrenaline rush was already over before we’d even gotten started.

"The reach of the external security cameras ends about four yards ahead. Blind spot's right over there. I'll disable the cameras--can you get the new ones ready to go?"

"Right-o, captain." She sounded so awake and alive in that moment that I was nearly annoyed, but her smile lessened my irritation. A little.

"Are you always this chipper at the ass crack of dawn?"

"Oh please, I'm at like, a five out of ten on the chipper scale right now. My sleep schedule's a wreck so I can be up and at em at any moment of the day. What about you? You're not exactly sleepwalking."

I paused. "I don't sleep well so I'm usually awake around now too. And I’m used to working when I’m tired.”

Often because I was on patrol, but usually because of my nightmares. At this point they weren't every night, but the threat of them was enough to keep me from getting into bed. On the upside, they'd shifted from a slideshow of me getting murdered every night to the greatest hits of my deepest existential fears. Somehow the new dreams were better because I only woke up drenched in sweat rather than thrashing and screaming.

“Sorry, sore spot?” Her voice was gentle, but not pitying.

“That obvious?” I was genuinely surprised. My poker face wasn’t exactly terrible.

“Not obvious, but I’ve been there so I could tell. Like, I've chugged energy drinks at 3AM just to keep my eyes open at any cost more times than I can count. " She shrugged. It didn’t seem to bug her too much.

I wanted to meet her eye but I couldn’t. Not out of embarrassment, but more because I was worried how I’d feel if we locked eyes. So I got busy. I disabled the cameras one by one and she put the cameras that were linked to both our systems and theirs in their place until we had finished with the perimeter. Steph used some remote device to cut the power to the alarm system.

"Oo, can I pick the lock?" She asked when we were finally able to go inside, but by the time she finished speaking I was already done. "Never mind..."

I smirked. "I could have picked this lock in my sleep. As an eight year old."

"Show off."

"Not showing off if it's easy." I held the door open for her and she walked in. "There's a central room controlling the other inside cameras. We can overwrite the footage of us coming in when we get there, no problem. Unfortunately we have to go through the basement to get there relatively undetected."

"Is it a gross basement or a normal one?" She glanced over at me, then at the room. It was dingy, with yellowed linoleum and a popcorn ceiling in the entry area, with a plain concrete floor and warehouse filled with open metal storage containers a little farther out.

"Don't know, but we're about to find out." I gestured toward the door leading to the basement, a few feet to our left.

We went down the stairs into the dark. It was definitely a gross basement, humid and damp. The building stored various metals and industrial parts, but the basement smelled like rot and seawater. A water leak had made the floor permanently sticky. I turned on my flashlight.

"Smells like a shark's butthole down here, gross." Steph wrinkled her nose as she turned on a flashlight. "Wish I had my full mask."

"We'll live. It's not too long of a walk."

The hall we had to go down was so dark that it felt like the ceiling was closing in on us. Even with our flashlights, my heart started pounding, familiar and unpleasant memories of damp darkness over me bubbling up. I took a deep breath and fixed my eyes on Stephanie's back to stay grounded.

"You ok back there?" She turned and looked at me, shining her light in my face.

"Just keep going. The sooner we're out the better."

She slowed, coming to walk closer to me. It felt better with her by my side, and even better (or worse?) that she could sense that that was going to make me feel better. With her right there, even though she was shorter than me, I didn't feel like the walls were closing in as much.

Eventually we came to the door, which opened into the security room. It was disgusting as well, bugs in the sticky styrofoam coffee cups strewn across the desk and crumbs on every surface, but at least everything seemed to be working. We had visuals and audio of the whole building.

I looked at the feeds--there were a few small side offices in addition to the entryway we’d come in, but most of the building was one long warehouse. Easy enough.

I took a seat at the desk and pulled out my laptop. Steph leaned over the screen console and took a look at the wires in the back.

“Easy peasy,” she said. She got to work on linking the internal feeds to her system while I took another look around the room.

"Places should really update their security systems so—“ She was cut off by her device pinging wildly. “Shit.”

She grabbed the device and started tapping the screen.

“A little too easy peasy?” I said, looking at the cameras, trying to figure out where the people were coming from.

“I jinxed it.” She held out the tablet, showing me. “Someone’s coming in the front.”

I flipped the feeds until the outside camera feed came into view. They didn't have to disable the alarms since they had some sort of key fob that they used to disarm everything. Thankfully I'd made it so the alarms would appear normal after Steph disabled them long enough for us to get in.

We watched as a man and a woman made their way into the main warehouse area. Once they stepped into the light, we finally got clear visuals--it was Alicia Gray/Roxanne Wilde and Silas. They were dressed in normalish clothes, except they had the neat tailoring and clean lines that showed that they were expensive. They reached the middle of the storage area and stopped, looking around. I leaned over Steph's shoulder to turn up the audio.

"It's not right. At all." Roxanne put her hands on her hips and looked around. "She said she needed more space than this to put the machine together."

"This is how much space she said..." Silas gestured vaguely to the empty space between the four shipping containers. "And the stuff's in the containers already."

"It's not. Look. I'm not a scientist but I can visualize a fucking space." She showed him a piece of paper and swore. "So we can't build it tonight."

"One more day won't hurt."

"But it won't help. This chick's parents are hardcore looking for her and we need to get the machine going." Roxanne ran her fingers through her hair and turned her back to the camera. "I wish you weren't such an idiot."

Silas didn't respond to the insult. "So what now?"

I could practically hear Roxanne rolling her eyes. "We go to plan B. You get your connections in here to make more space and we try again. When can they do that?"

Silas shrugged. "Next week? Our main dude's kid is graduating high school so he's out for the count for a while. And our security contact's in the burbs is with his sick mother a couple nights aweek so we have to coordinate that too."

She paused, tapping her toe against the ground behind her absently. "Fine. Next week. One week from now. But if he screws up next time, tell him I know a guy who can make it so he won't be able to operate heavy machinery ever again. And get your contact to fix tonight's footage tomorrow when his shift starts."

Silas nodded.

Roxanne finally turned around, seeming less irritated. "I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean to snap. Let's go home and figure it out more there?"

Silas nodded again and looped his arm around her waist. They made their way out. Steph and I didn't move an inch until we saw them get back into their car and pull off.

"That could have been bad," Steph said, sagging with relief against the edge of the desk. She jumped again when thunder clapped outside.

"We still need to drop DNA and movement censors in the main warehouse so it could still go wrong."

"Ever the optimist." She gave me a look that said she was just playing around even though her words sounded serious. "Let's go then."

We made our way back through the basement, water pouring down the walls from a leak as the storm picked up overhead. Once we were in the warehouse, we swept the space for more DNA. I wasn't able to grab anything more than what we already had.

"Gimme a boost?" Steph asked, her hands on the top edge of one of the shipping containers that Roxanne and Silas had been looking at.

I laced my fingers together for her to use my hands as a step and lifted her up onto the edge of the container.

"What's in there?" I asked, staying close to her in case she fell.

"Machine parts. Gimme a second. We can ID them later." She took a bunch of photos. "Let's look inside the others."

We went container by container and took photos of the contents until we had enough to research later. We went back to the entrance and opened the doors, only to be blasted by the rain. It was like someone was pouring buckets of water from the sky.

"Want to go to one of my safe houses since it's late?" Steph shouted over the wind and thunder.

"Yeah, anything to get out of this storm," I shouted back, jogging after her toward the bikes.

 

 

_Stephanie_

Safe house, sweet safe house.

After speeding through what was basically a sudden hurricane, we were both soaked to the bone.My suit was supposed to be waterproof, but some water and dirt must have seeped into it somewhere on our ride over. I could feel my sports bra chafing my back and my undies riding up my crack. Normally I ripped off all my clothes the moment I got home from patrol, but this was a studio apartment and Jason was y’know, right there.

He was dirty and soaked also, and had kicked off his boots next to the door. He looked around the apartment like he didn’t know where to go. Not that there were a lot of choices—the apartment had a bed in the corner, a small couch, a coffee table, a chair, and a little kitchen. There was also a small closet with a mirror door next to the bed. But besides that, just a little standing room.

“Um…” I stared blankly at him, then at the bathroom. “You probably want to shower all this dirt off right? You can go first. I’ll grab you a towel and stuff.”

“Yeah, that’d be good.” He rolled his shoulder forward like he was stretching . “Mind helping me with my base layers, though? It's a little hard to get this stuff off when I'm soaked."

He turned around and pointed to the tiny zipper on his back. I unzipped it, pushing it forward so he could peel it off his front without twisting too much. I shouldn’t have stared, but I couldn’t help but admire his back—his broad shoulders, his strong muscles rippling underneath his skin. A big, mostly healed cut laid on top of another layer on top of the scars he already had, which criss-crossed his skin in light and reddish scratches and puckers. Surprisingly, he didn’t have any bullet wound scars that I could readily recognize. Either way, the scars didn’t stop my breath from catching once I took him all in.

I was not going to survive if he ever touched me. I would melt straight through the floor. My heart was already fluttering and my inner thighs were a little more damp than they should have been considering that a) I was only touching his shoulder for god’s sake, and b) I hadn’t even gotten to my dirtiest fantasies in my mental reel yet.

“What’s up?” He asked, pulling me out of my daze. “Want me to search for the towels?”

“Oh, uh, no, sorry.” God, I needed to pull it together. “Just a second.”

I went to the closet to grab a towel, plus some shorts and a t-shirt that Dick had left when he’d borrowed the apartment. I doubted they’d fit, but at least Jason could get them on his body. Tim’s shorts and t-shirt would probably fit on one of Jason’s legs.

“Here you go.” I tossed him everything. “Those clothes will def not fit but it’s better than nothing. I’ll get some food going while you’re in there if you're hungry."

“That's be great. Thanks.” He went to shower, whistling to himself. I waited until I heard him turn on the water until I could relax a little. A little being the key word, because I was keyed up as hell.

I went into the small kitchen and ripped open the freezer, trying to shove down the thought of Jason soaped up and naked in my small safe house bathroom. I took out two frozen pizzas and turned on the oven, pacing absently while it pre-heated.

_Pull. It. Together._

The oven beeped, letting me know the pizzas were ready to go in, and put them on the rack. I stared at the timer, willing time to go faster so I could take my mind off these feelings. Soon the shower turned off, and a few minutes later Jason came out. The shorts fit, but he hadn’t even bothered with the shirt. I wish he’d bothered with the shirt. My knees straight up got weak at the full sight of his front, those strong arms, his fucking shoulders and the nice softness of his stomach that still showed a little ab definition underneath. He was so damn _manly_.

“There’s still hot water. And this t-shirt doesn’t fit.” He gestured toward the bathroom. “Want me to handle the food while you clean up?”

I nodded and went to freshen up, trying to ignore my pounding heart. Getting naked wasn’t helping either, so I hurried through my shower and threw on my big t-shirt and leggings. By the time I came back out, Jason had the pizzas and a bottle of cheap wine on the coffee table in front of the small couch.

“Hope you don’t mind that I opened this wine.” He raised a glass.

“No, it’s fine. I probably would have opened it anyway.” I sat down with him on the couch, putting as much space between us as possible. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” He took a long swig of his wine and started in on his pizza. We ate quietly for a while, until the silence started to kill me.

“So…” I said, just to fill the air and breathe out some of my anxious energy. "That set-up didn't go as planned."

"Of all the ways it could have not gone according to plan, it went surprisingly well." He shrugged. "We got the cameras set-up, got a look inside those bins, saw Alicia or Roxanne or whatever her name is with Silas."

"True. And it looks like they're...an item?" I pulled a pepperoni off my pizza and ate it. "Which is also useful information."

"Yeah, but in the past didn't Roxanne go for men who had money? Silas is a drug dealer, but not like, a Jay-Z kind of drug dealer. What does he have to offer?"

"Mad harsh--maybe he has a good heart," I said, somewhat sarcastically.

He snorted into his wine glass. "I mean, he's not the worst guy I've ever encountered but it seems like a woman who's dated handsome rich dudes would want to keep on that trend."

"Silas isn't that bad looking." Relatively.

He looked genuinely surprised. "You find him attractive?"

"Woah now, don't jump to that. Greasy dudes who probably smell like skunky weed and hot pockets are far from my type. I'm just saying that he’s not straight up fugly,” I said. "Why the surprise?"

He looked down into his wine glass. "You just surprise me sometimes."

"In what way?" I asked. He gave me a mildly annoyed look. "What? You opened this door."

He sighed. "I'm just confused by attraction as a concept. I figured you'd think Silas was completely unattractive. Who knows what Roxanne is after. Makes the mission more complicated in a way that can't logically be solved."

"True. But even though it’s the little things that get people, attraction usually boils down to personality puzzle pieces fitting together. And like, sex. Just from my experience. It is mysterious, though."

My face got hot. This was quickly getting into territory I didn't want to explore openly. God, why was I incapable of shutting up when I needed to?

And the uncomfortable silence returned. I wanted to look at him and also wanted to sink into the floor. Was I coming across as thirsty? I mean, he had to know that I thought he was hot. A more confident version of me would have just gone for it instead of dancing around the subject.

I fiddled with my wine glass, feeling his eyes on me. He put his arm across the back of the couch and gently played with the ends of my damp hair, which suddenly felt like it had nerve endings. I slowly reached toward his knee, running my fingers along the bottom edge of his shorts, glancing up at him to see if I was hallucinating the sharp change in atmosphere between us. It was like someone had thrown on the lights and we were both seeing what was there all along.

I wasn’t hallucinating. He took my face in both of his hands, pulled me close and kissed me. The passion behind it was what startled me the most. It was overwhelming, but in the way walking from darkness into bright sunlight was—it took a minute to adjust to it before you realized how good it felt. I moaned against his lips and threaded my fingers through his damp hair to pull him to me. He cupped the back of my neck and wrapped his other arm around my body, holding me almost tenderly. The contrast between his soft lips and his rough stubble sent chills running all over my body.

I let him pull me on top of him until I straddled his hips. He smiled up at me lazily as he ran his hands along my body, moving to kiss my neck, just where it met my shoulder. I swear I stretched like a cat being rubbed so he could kiss even more of me.

“God, yes, please more of that,” I blurted, which led him to gently nip and suck that sweet spot even more fervently. Even though it felt good, I wanted his lips again. I brought him back up and nipped his bottom lip before gently sucking on it. 

His hands skimmed over my ass and gave it a hard squeeze. “Your ass feels as good as it looks.”

“I take it looks good?” I shook my hips a little, kissing him on the underside of his chin, then the side of his neck.

“It’s fucking perfect.” He gave it another squeeze and a light slap before pulling up the hem of my t-shirt. 

I sat up and pulled off my shirt and sports bra for him, my breasts falling free. He immediately cupped them both, running his thumbs over my nipples. I felt his cock twitch between my legs and ground into him ever so slightly, reveling in the friction.

“Come up here. Near my face," he said.

I crawled up until he caught one of my nipples in his mouth, his tongue drawing gentle circles around it. He worked my other nipple with his free hand while he continued teasing me with his mouth. It felt so good that I started winding my hips, trying to get some sort of friction against my throbbing clit, and breathing like I’d just come in from a sprint. I glanced down at him and found a satisfied glint in his eyes.

“Are you getting a sick pleasure at making me act like this? Like a freaking cat in heat?” I asked breathily.

“I wouldn’t call it a sick pleasure. I’d say it’s a very natural one.” He raised an eyebrow, running his hands between my waist and my hips. My boobs were in the way, but I could tell he was smiling

“You’re such a smart ass,” I said, holding in a grin. I swung off of him and kneeled on the floor, gesturing for him to put his feet on the ground. “I can even this playing field.”

I tugged his pants off, then his boxers, and… _Hello_. It was a Goldilocks dick--not too long, not too short, a little on the thick side. I grasped it at the base and watched Jason bite his bottom lip, urging me to go on with his stare.

He didn’t need to push me—I was doing this for me as much as I was doing it for him. I locked eyes with him as I ran my tongue up the underside of his cock, relishing in the way his eyes fluttered closed and tension came into his jaw. My tongue swirled around his tip and up and down the shaft, taking my sweet time covering every inch of him. He was clearly trying to not thrust into my mouth, his fists gripping the fabric of the couch as if he was trying to hold himself down. He rested his hand on the top of my head, then slid it down to the side, just above my ear, his fingers trembling. Teasing him was a little too fun. 

I finally took him into my mouth as much as I could and started to slowly bob my head up and down. His grip on my hair tightened and he threw his head back, his breath becoming ragged and punctuated by swearing when I licked or kissed him just the right way. He guided me in the right direction with every twist of his hips and murmur for me to yes, please, keep doing that.

“Wait, Steph, hold on a minute,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders to stop me, chest heaving. 

He pulled me up to my feet and guided me to the bed, yanking down my leggings on the way. I kicked them off the rest of the way while crawling onto the bed. He crawled onto the bed after me, grasping my inner right thigh and opening my legs wide. He bit back a smile and ran his finger over my panties, which were definitely a little wet in the crotch.

“Did sucking me off make you wet?” His fingers strayed from the dampness back up to the waistband of my panties. I nodded weakly, trying to urge him to slip his fingers back down by shifting my hips.

“Yeah,” I said, biting my lower lip, almost a little self conscious about it.

He finally slipped his fingers under my waistband and slowly ran his fingers up, circling my clit but not quite touching it. I let out a very undignified whine. “I’ve been fantasizing about you doing that and it was even better than I thought it could be.”

Now I was full-on blushing. And rapidly getting wetter. God, this man’s voice should have been a crime in itself. “You’ve fantasized about me?”

He smiled, a little bashfully. “Sorry, too much? Not everyone’s into hearing that.”

“I mean, your fingers are literally centimeters from my vagina so I don’t think you telling me that you’ve jerked off to me is too much info. I’m into it.” I wiggled my hips so his fingers would slip toward my clit, which needed to be touched before I burst into flames.

His smile turned wolfish and he pulled my panties off entirely, tossing them to the floor with flourish. I hunched a little, trying to hide my c-section scar, which was usually hidden under the waistband of my undies. It was the only scar of mine that truly bothered me, but it didn’t phase Jason at all.

“So you want more?” He finally pressed his thumb to my clit, making slow, torturous circles.

“ _Please._ ”

“C’mere.” He patted the side of the bed closest to the closet, and hopped up to close its door. He positioned us so we could see ourselves in the mirror attached to it, then sat behind me. His cock was hot and hard against my back.

He started kissing my neck again, cupping my breasts and playing with my nipples before he opened my legs. He gently played with my clit, varying the pressure and movements so skillfully that it was like he’d read a manual on my body. I bucked my hips and involuntarily let out little cries, already starting to feel the pressure of an orgasm building up.

“Look at yourself,” he murmured, his breath hot on my ear. I obeyed. 

I was decently confident in my body, but I never thought I was truly sexy before now. My lips were puffy from kissing, my cheeks flushed, and my hair tousled in a way that I tried to do on purpose sometimes, but couldn't. And my body. I got a rush seeing myself spread out and glistening wet, Jason’s eyes gazing over my reflection hungrily, like he'd finally found food after days of searching.

I watched him deftly bring me closer to release, the fingers of one hand tweaking my clit and the others circling my entrance. He gently pushed his middle finger inside of me, then his ring finger, and pumped in rhythm with the hand on my clit. I tried to keep my eyes on us like he told me to—mostly on him, and that borderline primal gaze he had trained on me—but soon my eyes closed, and I was only conscious of my loud moaning, the way his thick fingers stroked just the right spot inside me, and unimaginable tension building inside me. He murmured “come for me” over and over again against my neck between kisses. And I did, hard, arching my back and crying out loudly, shuddering over and over again as the waves crashed over me.

It took me a while to come back down to earth, my pussy twitching around his fingers until he pulled them out. He sucked them clean, then stared at me in the mirror for a moment, his expression unreadable and his cheeks flushed. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, so I scrambled over to the side table and ripped open the drawer. Thank god I still had condoms in this safe house. I grabbed one and tossed it at him.

“Thanks.” He ripped it open and went to work rolling it on.

He hooked his arms under my thighs and yanked me toward him so I was flat on my back, knees pressed back toward my shoulders. He ran the tip of his cock up and down my slit, sliding just the tip into me before pulling out and continuing the cycle. I practically glared at him and shifted my hips up as if to say _come on, dude, just fuck me before I literally die_. Then in one smooth motion, he pushed himself into me to the hilt, making me cry out at the sudden feeling of fullness and pleasure. He paused, checking my expression, so I nodded for him keep going.

He started off slow, but hard, then sped up. He threw his bodyweight into the thrusts, hitting that line between painful and pleasurable. I tried to grab the headboard to try to get leverage so he could fuck me even harder, but he took the opportunity to grab my wrists and pin them above my head in one of his hands. I wrapped my legs around him and we were chest to chest, his mouth on my collarbone.

I felt out-of-body—the only things left were my nerve endings, and all of them were lit up with pleasure. I urged him to go harder, to leave his mark on me so I could replay the memory with ease later. He pulled my hair, bit my neck, raked his teeth across whatever skin he could reach. I wanted him all over me.

I could tell he was getting closer by the way his words alternated between coherence to staccato moans.

“Fuck…Steph,“ He buried his face in the crook of my neck, his breath hot. The words pushed him over the edge and he came hard, sounding like something primal came rushing out of him.

He sagged on top of me, resting his weight on his elbows so he wouldn’t crush me. He slowly pulled out after giving me a tender kiss on the forehead, rolling off of me and wordlessly padding into the bathroom. I was beyond spent, too sated to even revel in the fact that _that just happened_. Oh my god. I stared at the ceiling, a pleasant soreness blooming between my legs and all over my torso. I wanted to stay awake until he came back so I could see if he was feeling just as blissed out as I was. But he was taking his sweet time, so I passed out before he did.

When I woke up in the afternoon the next day, I could smell him (and sex) on the sheets, but he was gone. A small knot grew in my stomach. No note, but he had texted me.

 _Let me know when you’re free to go over the warehouse footage_.

No mention of the night we just had. All business.

Shit.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll probably go back through and tweak the prose here and there since it's a lil messy. Butttt wanted to post it. Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for kudos/comments :3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this wasn't too long of a wait for an update--enjoy!

_Jason_

It had been a while since I’d had a good, old fashioned self-loathing session. Laying in bed burrowed under the covers, but not sleeping. Lights off, appropriately angsty music playing. Terrible, intrusive thoughts bombarding me every second.

I was such a miserable fuck up. A miserable fuck up who caught feelings, denied them until they were absolutely undeniable, then blew the woman I had feelings for off after an incredible night with a fucking text out of fear. _A fucking text_ about our mission.

Though even if by some miracle she had feelings for me beyond wanting to fuck even after this, I would 100% mess things up anyway. Sure, she was in the same business, which came with its own set of problems, but she could be with a guy without all my baggage. A guy who actually knew what a healthy romantic relationship looked like firsthand rather than a vague idea of it formed from novels and glances at happy couples. Plus, every time I'd trusted someone or loved them, I got the shit end of the stick, with very few exceptions. I was already starting to trust her--how long could that even last?

Then again, it hadn't even crossed my mind that I would ever had actual romantic feelings for anyone, so I hadn't even paid much attention to how I would actually be in a relationship. I was Jason Todd, the loner with a high sex drive and ( _extremely justified_ ) trust issues. Not exactly the kind of person you wanted to be emotionally intimate with. I was the guy girls slept with when they wanted to scratch that itch for a bad boy.

And what if that was what she was after? She'd dated Tim for a long time, and he wasn't exactly terrifying. Sure, he could fight like hell, but just looking at him, he was the Perfectly Acceptable Boyfriend. More than acceptable, since he was the son of a billionaire.

I wasn't an idiot, though. There was something there between us, a little deeper than just wanting to fuck each other. And now I was back where I'd started--if the connection was real, why would she want to be with me after I blew her off so hard?

Oh, and the whole Batgirl thing. That little detail of her plus little ole black sheep me equaled trouble.

I rolled over onto my stomach and buried my face into my pillow, resisting the urge to actually yell into it. Instead I just mumbled "fuck" over and over again.

My phone rang on my side table and I snapped it up, hoping it was Steph, even if it was her telling me to go to hell. At least there could be some closure so I could suck it up and go back to my life. But it was Roy.

"What's up, broski?" He asked when I picked up the phone, so loudly that I flinched.

"Why are you screaming?" I rolled over onto my side so I was facing the wall, lined with a tall stack of books in foreign languages. I made a mental note to rearrange the stack to include some of the Russian classics I'd picked up in the past month.

"Why are you blasting an old ass Radiohead song?" He asked.

"I'm just resting."

"Nah, pretty sure you're angsting out. You can be dramatic as hell sometimes so don't try to fool me. Do I need to come over?"

I closed my eyes and tried to burrow even deeper under the covers. This was the problem with having people close to you--you couldn't bullshit them. "Why are you calling?"

"I'm in Gotham and wanted to see what's up. Now that I know you're moping around for some reason, I'm gonna bring you food and keep you company. Tacos good?"

Once Roy was determined to do something, he would do it, whether it was attempting to cheer me up or making a rocket launcher out of whatever was in the closest dumpster. I sighed through my nose. "Yeah, tacos are good."

I dragged myself out of bed and pulled on some sweats and a t-shirt by the time he rang the doorbell.

"You aren't injured?" He asked the second I opened the door. He had on his usual--a backwards hat, a tank he'd created by hacking the sleeves off a Brooklyn Nets t-shirt, and shorts. He'd gotten a new tattoo on the underside of his bicep.

"No." I let him in, the scent of tacos making my stomach growl.

He dropped the bag of tacos down on my coffee table and flopped on the couch, kicking off his flip flops. "So it's worse than I thought. Work problems? Bat problems?"

I sat down next to him and dug through the bag, pulling out my five tacos. I handed him his four foil-wrapped carne asada ones, and set out the chips and salsa that came with the order between us. The familiarity of eating takeout on the couch with him was already making me feel slightly better.

I dumped salsa on one of the tacos and sighed. "Girl problems."

"Oof. Did a hook-up try to kill you again?" He said through a mouthful of food.

I didn't say anything for a moment, trying to figure out how to say it.I decided to be blunt: "I have feelings for someone."

Roy choked momentarily, rushing to pop open the soda he'd brought. He guzzled it down to stop his coughing. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I have feelings for someone and it's going about as well as you'd expect." I dunked a chip in the too-runny salsa so hard that it shattered. "Appreciate that the shock of this nearly killed you."

"Sorry, man. It's just that that's the last thing I expected to come out of your mouth. Who's the lucky lady?"

"The current Batgirl."

He let out a low whistle and leaned back into the couch. "So basically the most complicated person you could catch feelings for."

"Yeah. But she's different than the others. She's cool."

More than cool. Just being around her made me feel warmer, almost happier. Looking at her made me literally get fucking butterflies in my stomach sometimes. Her goofy laughter made me smile. All of the cliches about romance were actually true. Denying the fact that I was attracted to more than just her outside for so long was making the depth of the realization that I was falling hard even worse.

"So what happened?" He asked.

I explained how everything had gone down, from how we met to last night, keeping it vague when I needed to. He didn't need to know the mission details or how extremely good the sex was (to put it very, very lightly.) After I finished talking, Roy's expression got serious.

"So you think you're not a good fit for her," He said. A sentence, not a question.

"Right."

His eyebrows raised so high that I thought he'd pull a muscle in his forehead. "Where's your trampoline?"

"What?"

"The trampoline you used to jump to all those conclusions." He put both hands on top of his head, elbows out, an unconscious habit of his when he got worked up. "Bro, you literally just assumed she felt some way about you and your past without actually asking her. Sure, you kinda fucked up but you can fix it. You said she's cool and not judgmental so just apologize a million times and let her know how you feel. Then see where it goes.“

He did have a point--Steph clicked with me in a way a lot of people didn't and didn't assume I was some simple-minded murderer. She wasn't immediately holier-than-thou when I mentioned my methods of getting shit done, and seemed to want to understand me more. So maybe she'd understand why I was terrified of my feelings. Or maybe not, but either way Roy was right.

Instead of admitting that to him, I said, "I mean, I guess."

"Plus, give yourself some credit. You're a decent dude once you get past that rough exterior and the whole assassin thing." He shrugged.

"Strong vote of confidence." I snorted.

"Would I be your friend if you were an asshole?"

"But I _can_ be an asshole."

"You're the fun kind of asshole." Roy crumpled up his empty foil packets and stuffed them in the empty paper bag the tacos had come in.

"But what about the Batgirl thing?" I asked. "That's still an issue. She hasn't told anyone that we're working together. And I could still be just a rebound lay.”

Roy lifted his hat and fluffed his hair, pausing to think. "What would suck more--never telling her you like her and letting this whole thing be this awkward elephant between you, or telling her you like her and possibly getting somewhere?"

"The first part. But the second part doesn't sound good either since she could reject me."

Rejection. The word sat in the pit of my stomach. I preferred the idea of being rejected by omission than telling her how I felt and her shooting me down, which would confirm everything I'd been ruminating on. But I was too far down the rabbit hole to get out of this unscathed.

"Just apologize and tell her why you did what you did. Then just tell her you like her." He half-shrugged. "You've literally jumped out of planes into active war zones and shit--talking about your feelings doesn't come close to that since you probably won't die. Honesty is actually the best thing for relationships in general."

"Oh ok, all I have to do is pour out all my insecurities to the first woman I've had genuine feelings for in both of my stupid lives.” I laughed, but actual dread filled my veins. "A fucking cake walk."

 

 

_Steph_

 

There was way too much color in front of me for my eyes to handle. The wall in my mom and her fiancé's apartment was covered in white index cards surrounded by a florescent colored post it, coded by whether the wedding guest was on our side of the family, his side of the family, mutual friends, his friends, or Mom's friends. My future stepsister Hannah had arranged it, standing in front of it with her hands on her slender hips, tutting at whether her pragmatic Aunt Claudia could stand sitting next to mom's cousin Ann who believed in crystals and guardian angels.

Mom helped from her spot on the couch, making jokes as she made suggestions as to who should sit where. She was happy, so I was happy. She deserved this after all the shit she’d been through with my dad, and her fiancé was a great guy.

But at the same time, being bombarded with hearts and love and stuff while Hannah grinned and cooed over how romantic it all was made me want to barf.

Romance, as a concept, could go choke.

I wished I could wipe my memory of last night, but it was a little hard when I was still walking a little funny from Jason banging me like a screen door during a hurricane. Every shift of my legs brought me back. I couldn't stop thinking about how he looked at me like I was the sexiest woman on earth, like the only place on earth he wanted to be was in bed with me. Or how he kissed me so sweetly on the forehead once we were both spent.

But then, that stupid text message. All business. Not even a "that was crazy, right? Anyway, the mission..."

I thought we had something. Like, if not full on crushes, at least mutual flirty attraction. I wasn't so deluded that I was imagining it all—we clicked. He was kind of an adorable dork under all of that bad boy bravado and we had a fun, jokey thing going on between us.

But maybe he was just using me. Now that he got that boner for me out of his system, he didn't have to pretend. It made me feel like I was in high school all over again. Guys took a look at me and saw a "fun" blonde with a rack and an ass and didn't take me seriously.

I'd _make_ him take me seriously. That asshole.

"Hun?" Mom waved her hand in front of my face, startling me from my stupor. "Did you hear me?"

"What?"

"Do you need a plus one?" Hannah asked. It was a truly innocent question, but even so, my blood abruptly started to boil.

"Nope, I'm going to enter a convent soon," I said, nearly snarling. They stared at me blankly, waiting for me to explain. "Sorry, that was...a terrible joke."

"Okay! No worries!" Hannah, ever the optimist, turned back around to face the chart. "So we'll say no for now."

"I'm sorry, it's been a rough week." I stood up and stretched. "I'm also running late to coffee with a friend so I guess I'll see you guys later?"

Mom gave me a knowing look. What she knew I wasn't sure, but she would probably ask me later. The only semi-downside of our now close relationship was how she could read me way too well.

I said my goodbyes and rushed out into the hot evening air. I started sweating almost immediately even though I was wearing a light dress. Summer was here early, and, as usual, I was going to be at Babs' headquarters late. I'd sent her the photos and footage of the warehouse I had this morning, and we were going to go over it.

I took the elevator down to Babs' lair, waiting for her to scold me me for my lateness. But instead she said hi, smiling broadly, turning in her wheelchair away from her computer screens. The greenish light coming from behind her made her look a little ghostly.

"This intel is great, Steph," she said, her eyes bright behind her glasses. "These pieces in the photos you sent seem to match up with what's been stolen from all those break-ins. "

"Really?" I put my backpack down in its usual spot and grabbed a can of fancy coffee from her mini-fridge. "That's good news."

"Yep. They're more than likely making the mind control machine that Marcia said was possible in her paper. Now I'm trying to piece together why they're doing this at all." She changed all the screens to street camera footage of Roxanne that she must have had around the city. "Here's Roxanne, but she hasn't really done anything unusual in the past few days besides go out to that warehouse and back. She's staying in a very fancy apartment on the west side with Silas. Nothing happening in that area or in Marcia's area either."

I sat on the edge of her desk and crossed my legs. "From what I know about her movements, she's gotten groceries and she's gone to this bar in the neighborhood where Marcia disappeared. But why? If she's staying on the west side, why did she drag groceries all the way from Marcia's neighborhood to hers?"

Babs drummed her nails against her desk. "They could be for someone. A friend, or for Silas."

"But was Silas living with her a month or so ago?”

"Now, yes. Then, I don't believe so." She flipped through more feeds. "She must be giving him money. His bank accounts have quite a few large deposits that couldn't be from selling weed.“

"What does she even see in him?" I asked, then felt a weird kinship with her. Clearly attraction made no sense, which made her and Silas make more sense. "Not that attraction makes logical sense."

Babs glanced over her shoulder at me, glasses on the end of her nose. Luckily she didn't say anything. "Don't know. There's a very strong chance that she's just manipulating him. She's done it with men in the past."

"Any hints about where Marcia is in all this?" I asked.

She sighed. "No. And it's still unclear as to why she and Roxanne look so similar. That has to be part of it. "

I stared at the floor, trying to think of some connection we'd missed.

“By the way, how’d you get all of this intel so quickly?” She asked. “I’m impressed, but also worried about whether you’ve been getting sleep doing all of this.”

On its face it was an innocent question, but I knew when Babs was baiting me. I didn’t want to take the bait. Did I secretly suck at keeping secrets or something, or did Babs just know me way too well? Or both?

“Y’know, just kicking it into overdrive.” I fiddled with the pull tab on my can so I wouldn’t have to look at her.

“Mmhm.” I could feel her green eyes lazering into me.

“What do you want me to say?” I blurted. “What’s with the mind games?”

Babs rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I was hoping that we were at the point in our relationship where you’d feel comfortable telling me things, even if they’re difficult. I guess I should just ask directly—did you have help with any of this mission that you aren’t telling me about?”

Despite my anger at myself and annoyance at Babs, I spilled everything--my anger at Tim, which made me want to do this on my own, how I struck up a deal with Jason, and how we ended up working pretty well together. I kept out the part about Jason and I hooking up, but I didn’t think I did a good job at pretending I didn’t have a big stupid crush on him. She nodded along, like I was telling her about a particularly rough day I’d had.

"Thank you for finally telling me." She gave my hand a squeeze, noticing that I was on the verge of tears. At least she didn't ask why I was getting so emotional over this. I refused to cry over any guy after my breakup with Tim, but sometimes they made it hard by being the absolute worst.

"But why didn't you say anything sooner?”

"Because I had a hunch it was Jason, based on the neighborhood where all of this was going down. if Jason knew that I knew, he'd run. We did need some help and he provided. Plus, at this point Jason...he's welcome to come back. His bar for murder has raised significantly and he's doing some good for his neighborhood, even if his methods are a little more...handsy." She sighed, obviously worried. "It's just that he and Bruce are too strained to work together unless they go through some serious therapy. But who could they even talk to?"

"Yeah, pretty sure they'd both be thrown in jail if they told the truth." I rolled my eyes. "So you're fine with him helping?"

"I'm more than fine. He's extremely smart and was always a good Robin, even if he took things a little too personally sometimes. But I'm guessing he doesn't want us to know he's working with you?"

"Nope. Though Tim knows by accident and nothing exploded. Tim also told me about how Jason and Dick almost reconciled not too long ago but things fell through." I drummed my nails on her desk. "So he'd get along with like, us two. And Cass, I guess. Damian hates basically everyone so it doesn't make a difference if he works with us or not. Jason doesn’t want to get back in with the family, though.“

"Of course. Sometimes he's too stubborn for his own good. I'll stay at a distance, then, at least for now. But you two need to dig up more intel and fast about these gaps in the case before that deadline Roxanne mentioned at the warehouse.”

We didn't have much time, so I couldn't wait. I had to call him as soon as I could. I reached for my phone, picking at the loose bit of silicone on its case that was sticking out. Itook a deep breath, turned my back to Babs, and dialed his number. I was a pro. I didn't let dumb guy problems get to me.

Maybe if I said it enough, it would be true. Repeating it in my head a few times did give me a little boost of courage, at the very least, as the phone started to ring.

"Hey, Steph?" Jason said moments later when he picked up, sounding like he was waiting for my call.

And the wind went right out of my sails and into my heart, which immediately fluttered at the sound of his voice.

It was worth repeating: romance, as a concept, could choke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this chapter works on a characterization level. Slightly worried about it :| 
> 
> Comments/kudos appreciated :3


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof sorry for the long wait again :| anyway, thanks for reading, enjoy!

_Jason_

 

I’d chosen Patty’s bar for my next meeting spot with Steph for a lot of reasons. Patty was letting us use it in the middle of the day, so it would just be us and a few of the bartenders prepping for the night. And because it was a public place, I would be more likely to hold it together emotionally if shit in the fan. If I gathered up the balls to actually address our night together, I could either have a drink in celebration (not likely) or drink until Patty cut me off (very likely).

And Patty's bar was a fortress. She was my kind of paranoid—she swept for bugs or any surveillance devices regularly, so it was a good place to meet up and talk about whatever slightly illegal stuff you had to handle.

I sat in the corner, under the air vent to cool down from the heat outside and waited, trying to ignore the worried glances Patty was giving me. I knew I looked composed on the outside--for fuck's sake, I could handle being interrogated by terrorists without breaking a sweat and this was a lower stakes situation by a factor of a billion or so--but inside I was getting worked up. 

The “healthy communication” Roy told me about probably didn’t mean projectile vomiting instead of talking about your feelings.

Steph came in moments later, her face flushed red from the heat and her hair in a messy bun on the top of her head. She had on a blue slip dress that moved around her body in a way that made every part of me ache to touch her. Thank god we were in public.

"Hey," she said breezily, sitting across from me, tossing her bag on the ground. She looked...completely fine. Sweaty, but fine and not at all pissed off at me. Maybe this would go well.

"Uh, hey."

She opened her bag and whipped out a bunch of thick file folders. "Good news is that those parts we took pictures of in the warehouse bins match what could be the mind control machine Marcia said was possible to build in her paper. Bad news is that we still have a buttload of questions that need to be answered fast before they build the thing in the next two days, assuming they still go to the warehouse the night they said they would."

I blinked, watching her spread out the files on the table. Right to business? No pleasantries besides "hey?" A wave of dread made my lower stomach clench.

"Right to it, eh?" I said, trying to keep the tone light even though the knot in my stomach was growing and sweat dripped down my lower back.

"We've got business to get down to, so yeah." She smiled a little, but it only half-reached her eyes.

"We aren't going to mention the other night? At all?" I pulled a file folder across the table just to have something to do with my hands. I felt them starting to sweat right away. Jesus, why did I even have to mention it if she was clearly not interested in talking about it?

"Our little one night stand?" She raised an eyebrow, her eyes not quite cool but not exactly warm either. "That was pretty nuts."

One night stand, a thing not to be repeated. I felt like I had been stabbed in the gut, and as a guy who had literally been stabbed on several occasions, I almost wished for a real knife.

I was a fucking idiot.

At least we didn't have to have a long, drawn out conversation about my feelings since apparently she didn't feel much of anything about it. And no need to apologize if she wasn't hurt. Plus, my apparently-delicate heart would stay intact and walled off if I never had to talk about how I felt, which I guess would be better than this feeling. Even with that silver lining, I looked over Steph's shoulder at one of the bar stools, where I knew I was going to go drown my sorrows once she left.

"Pretty crazy," I finally said. I slapped a cocky smile on my face, willing my expression to not become a grimace as I felt my heart sink. I curled my toes in my sneakers to try to get some tension out without her noticing, and shoved any hint of vulnerability I was experiencing into the back of my mind.

She opened one folder that had photos of Marcia and Roxanne side by side. They could have been sisters.

"So, we have the 'when' and 'what'--they're going to make that machine in the next day or so and use it on Gothamites who are way over the whole villains-fucking-with-them-on-the-reg thing. But 'why' they're doing it is completely unclear. We need to figure out the 'why' to get Marcia back and to stay a few steps ahead of these guys."

I rifled through the files and opened one that had security photos of Roxanne and Silas doing normal, day to day stuff. Nothing overtly shady--they went to get coffee and food, then came back to the huge apartment building where they were staying. No signs of Marcia. I wondered if we'd missed something in their pasts or if we hadn't tailed them enough.

"I'm tempted to shake them down for information and stop them before they even get started," I said. The building where they were living was in a neighborhood I'd worked in before; it would probably be easy to get to them.

"But what if they aren't working alone and we tip someone off? We're flying blind into this thing." She sighed, then added, "And I'm usually all for winging it, but if we fail, then a good chunk of Gotham will probably fall under the control of some con-artist and a second-rate weed guy."

"Gotham's been through a hell of a lot worse. Not that that makes the idea of being controlled by some guy who regularly gets so stoned that he ends up pantsless at a deli eating gummy worms at eight in the morning any more palatable." I opened a file with Roxanne's info in it.

I was a fast reader, so I took a minute or two to go back through her file. Roxanne was a real winner--when she wasn't stealing identities and committing fraud, she was harassing her exes and their current girlfriends or selling fake crystals on Etsy. I went through a few print-outs of her Facebook account too. She shilled weird diet powders, cleanses, and leggings like they were going out of style. All in all, nothing unusual, aside from the criminal background.

Steph sighed through her nose, paging through more files. I took a peek at what she was looking at--Alicia Gray, the woman whose identity Roxanne was using.

"Anything interesting there?" I asked.

"Yeah, kind of. So Alicia Gray's ex-husband? He was one of the guys duped by Roxanne." She raised an eyebrow, a tiny, satisfied smile coming onto her face. It was the first real smile she'd given me this whole time and it made me smile too for a second.

"Nice find. I'm assuming Alicia and the guy got divorced before Roxanne came into the picture?” I asked.

"Yep, but barely. So Alicia's ex filed for divorce, then Alicia found out she was sick a few weeks later. By the time the divorce was finalized a month or two before Alicia died, Roxanne and the guy were shacked up."

"So much for mourning."I drummed my fingers on the table. "So at least we kind of know how Alicia and Roxanne are connected. But what about Roxanne and Marcia?"

Steph thumbed through more of the papers. "Maybe Marcia and Alicia were related--look. Alicia was adopted and based on some of her internet history before she died, she was looking for her birth family. Maybe she was trying to tie up loose ends or something."

I studied the photos of all three women I had in another folder in front of me. Seemed plausible enough. "So Roxanne stole Alicia's identity after she died, somehow figured out that Marcia might be related to Alicia, and came to Gotham?"

"There are a buttload of missing pieces here." She chewed on her full bottom lip for a second. My focus returned to the knot in my stomach when I remembered how soft that bottom lip was when I kissed her.

I forced myself to stare at the files again to take my mind off the feeling. "Maybe we should tail them."

Steph shrugged. "Worth a shot."

"Alright, let's make a plan." I found the file with the surveillance of their day to day movements.

"Plan" was a loose term for it. To me they were more of an outline than a hard-and-fast rule, which seemed to work for Stephanie also. We decided on when to meet and where, plus what we needed to bring for every possible scenario, and left the rest up for improvisation. All I needed to do was get an inconspicuous car for a stakeout and a disguise ready.

"So, we're all set?" I asked, closing up the notebook I'd brought along.

"Yep." She took the files and put them back in her bag, pausing after she zipped it.

We sat there in awkward silence for a moment, looking at each other like we weren't sure who should break the tension. I wanted to crack a joke or something, but somehow it didn't feel right to do it.

"So, um, guess I'll see you tomorrow?" She stood up and put on her backpack.

"Yeah." I got up too and silently walked her to the door.

It was so much different than our last goodbyes, and she was clearly feeling the difference too. No jokes, no flirting. We stopped again before she stepped out, avoiding each other's gazes before I coughed and looked past her shoulder, into the alley. She gave me one more wave and went back down the alley to the outside world. Once the door closed, I ran my hands through my hair and groaned.

"Woof, that was hard to watch. Drink this," Patty said from behind the bar. She already had a tumbler of whiskey ready to go for me.

And that was why I needed Patty in my life. 

 

 

Steph

 

Gotham had sinkholes all the time. Why couldn't I just summon one and fall into it like I wanted to?

After our awkward meeting, I stormed home and sat in my bathtub, letting it fill up slowly around my body. I didn't want to cry, but the painful stab of my stupid plan backfiring made it hard to hold back the tears.

I wanted to be calm and cool, and pretend that I was the kind of girl who had one night stands all the time. Before I came to Patty's, I stood in front of my mirror in one of my most low-key sexy-yet-casual dresses and gave myself a pep talk. Who cared if he wasn't into me? That was his loss. I was smart, funny, and cute 80% of the time. He'd be lucky to have me.

But then that cocky grin he had on his frustratingly handsome face after he brought up that night, like he'd completed a conquest by fucking me, made me regret not yelling at him at length about what a douche he was.

And we still had to work together.

I soaked in the tub until my skin was pruned, then got up and tucked myself into bed to mope. I wrapped myself up like a burrito in my blanket and watched The Great British Bakeoff until I fell asleep.

I woke up the next day feeling hung over. At least that pushed me to get ready for the stakeout Jason and I had arranged. I had a whole closet filled with wigs and other disguises, so I had my pick. I chose a light brown wig with bangs, a flannel button down, and acid wash jeans. My stakeout bag had my bat gear, an extra suit, an extra wig or two, and some snacks.

I took a long deep breath and headed out to our meeting spot on the edge of town right around sunset. I waited on the corner, feeling self conscious in my disguise, all alone amongst warehouses. Jason finally pulled up a few minutes later in a nondescript sedan, the perfect stakeout car. He was wearing a longer black wig under a backward baseball hat, and he'd shaved. Of course he still looked just as good without all that stubble. Could he be ugly from at least one angle to give my hormones a rest?

"Hey." He nodded to me as I sat down on the passenger side. "Put your stuff in the back seat."

I did, and noticed a bunch of random crap back there--pink running shoes, a gym bag with a sports bra hanging out of it, a towel, a phone charger...

"Wait, did you steal this car?" I asked, sounding more horrified than I'd intended to.

Jason rolled his eyes. "Of course I did. And I know how to steal a car without getting caught. You think this is amateur hour?”

I sucked in a deep breath through my nose and faced forward in my seat again. "Whatever."

He pulled off, then turned onto the main road. He used his turn signal. "Are you seriously horrified that I'm using a stolen car for our stakeout?"

"I'm not horrified. I'm just..." I paused, trying to figure out what bothered me. Hell, I'd stolen a car before, but it was in a pinch, not when I could have gotten another one clean. "I wouldn't have stolen it."

He just shrugged and snorted, ignoring me like I'd said the dumbest thing in the world. So that was how it was going to be.

We drove in uncomfortable silence that made it way too easy for me to ruminate on how quickly things had gone sour between us. I wanted to say something, desperately, but we had a job to do. And besides, I was barely over my mope-session. If I embarrassed myself by blurting out all my feelings, I'd probably mope my way into a coma or something.

We finally reached Silas and Roxanne's neighborhood, parking far enough away to not be spotted if they came outside. Jason propped up a phone on a dashboard mount so if anyone passed by, it would look like he was looking at directions. Instead, he was monitoring the street cameras on the other side of their building, just in case. The audio of the feed murmured quietly.

And so, we sat. And waited. And waited. The silence between us was killing me.

"This blows," I mumbled, slumping into my seat.

"What does?"

"Nothing." I looked out the window. A woman with three kids, one in a stroller and two skipping next to her, passed by us without a second glance.

I saw him raise his right eyebrow in his reflection in my window. "Nothing? Oh. Ok."

My blood started to simmer. Super didn't appreciate that 'tude. I bit the inside of my cheek, willing myself to shut up for once. It worked for about five full minutes before I couldn't stop myself.

"What's that supposed to mean? ‘Nothing? Oh. Ok.’?”

"It just means that I was repeating what you said." He switched the feeds on the phone. People were coming out of the building and the audio got a bit louder.

"Are you kidding me?"

"No, I'm not." He dropped his hand and stared at me, his eyes intense. "But it seems like you do have a problem, and if it's going to fuck up this mission, then I need to know right now before things get going."

I glared at him, and nearly said something about what a huge dick he was when his gaze suddenly shifted away from me and focused on the screen. It was Roxanne and Silas, trailed by a woman in a baseball hat and hoodie, her hair covering the sides of her face. Marcia? Or someone else?

Jason turned up the feed. They weren't saying much at all, but Silas did insist on driving the three of them. Jason started to follow them as they pulled away, turning off the feed since we couldn't hear inside their car anyway. Like ours, it was a nondescript sedan.

My adrenaline started pumping, a little prematurely. They could have been going to the grocery store for all we knew, but that mystery woman seemed to be a good sign.

He followed at a good distance all the way until we were on the outskirts of Gotham again, where the warehouse was. The closer we got to the warehouse, the more fidgety I got. Jason put more and more distance between us and their car as traffic thinned, and zoomed on after they pulled into the parking lot of the warehouse.

He pulled the car into a lot between an abandoned gas station and a unkempt field a quarter mile or so away from the warehouse and threw it into park. In the rapidly fading light, there was very little chance of us attracting attention.

"I say we go over there in full gear and bust them right away, assuming we catch them in the act. Those video feeds are still working, right?" Jason asked. He tugged off his t-shirt, revealing his body armor.

"They are, but shouldn't we just hold back a little so we can actually catch them doing something? How else could we ensure they get arrested for kidnapping?" I unbuttoned my top to expose my body armor also. I'd decided to go capeless.

"We tie them up and ask where Marcia is. Assuming we convince them to talk, we'll find her." He pulled his Red Hood helmet from his bag. I could tell it was heavy from the way he held it. "Marcia will talk, they’ll get caught by the police by checking out her story.”

"Seems too simple to work."

"Sometimes simple is the only thing that will work." He got out and popped the trunk. "It's a start, at least. And it stops them from building the machine, which is the main issue we need to tackle, Marcia or no, and takes out our prime suspects in the kidnapping."

He had a point. I hopped out too and finished changing. My belt was stuffed with all sorts of non-lethal ways to knock people out, but Jason only had two holsters and some ammo on him, from what I could tell. I didn't say anything about it.

Once we were ready, we snuck through the overgrown field, through parking lots, and finally to the rooftop of a building adjacent from the warehouse. We laid on our stomachs and looked at my tablet, which was connected to the feeds both inside and outside of the warehouse. Silas, Roxanne, and the mystery woman were in the middle of the warehouse, moving things out of the big dumpsters and into the open space in the middle.

That couldn't have been it...three people, building a machine that presumably could take over the minds of an entire major city? I felt a tingle of unease in the back of my mind.

"Still seem too simple?" I asked.

"It'll work out. It looks all clear for now, at least for a little while ." He got into his knees. "C'mon."

"Woah now. I can't believe I have to be the voice of reason here or anywhere but maybe we shouldn't rush this." I went to grab his arm but he flinched away from me. Thankfully his Red Hood mask was on so I couldn't see his disgust or hear his actual, undisguised voice.

"Then you stay here and be my backup. You have my comm frequency?" He asked. I nodded. "Good. Keep lookout, comm me if anyone approaches and I'll comm you if I need help."

And with that, he made his way down the side of the building and snuck into the warehouse. I stayed on my stomach, sighing hard through my nose as if he could hear me and my annoyance.

Nothing happened for a solid ten minutes, on the comm or in my video stream. He took his time, making his way over to where they were creating the machine across the rafters. I couldn't quite make out what Roxanne and Silas were saying--something about someone else? About the machine? I cranked up the volume as high as it would go in my ear piece.

"Batgirl, any visual changes?" Jason asked over comm, his voice startling me.

I took another long scan of the area. Some cars were driving on the long highway leading up to the warehouse, in a cluster, like they were together.

"A few cars, maybe about a mile away. Clustered, coming this direction, but I'm not sure if it's a coincidence."

"Ok. Keep me posted.Going to work under the assumption that they're here to help so I'm going to escalate this."

"Is that code for 'fuck their shit up?'" I asked. He made some sort of sound that I couldn’t understand.

Did he snort? It seemed like a snort. I hoped it was a snort.

Either way he didn't answer. His comm went quiet and I turned my attention to the video feed.

Roxanne, Silas and Mystery Woman were somewhat surprised when he landed, but not as shocked as I was hoping they'd be. I glanced up and switched to binocular vision on my mask. The cars were still coming this way, and fast.

Jason kept his cool, even as Silas scrambled for what I assumed was a gun. Roxanne stood her ground and the other woman kept her head down, screwing some pieces together as if Jason hadn't appeared.

"Who sent you?" Silas asked, his voice almost sounding brave before it cracked at the end of his question. Once he finally got the gun in his hands, he held it in two hands and shakily pointed it at Jason's feet.

Jason shrugged, hooking his thumbs into his jacket pockets and strolling past the machine parts without a worry in the world.

"I sent myself. Better question is what you guys are building, and who this lady is." Jason slowly approached the woman in the hat, who was still looking down and fiddling with something. I assumed it wasn't a weapon since he hadn't drawn his own gun.

I heard the rumble of car engines getting closer, and told Jason to speed it up.

He turned toward the woman in the hat, startling her backward. She dropped whatever she was holding. I couldn't get a clear look at it, but it looked kind of like a tube. But I did get a clear look at her face--it was Marcia.

"Red Hood, is that a bomb?" I asked, looking over my shoulder. The cars were definitely coming here. Shit. Shit.

Jason ignored me, and opened his mouth to say something.

"Don't!" Marcia shrieked, leaping back even farther, fumbling with something in her hoodie. "Did my parents send you?"

Jason put his hand out as a calming gesture, but that only gave Roxanne a chance to take a flying leap at him. He dodged her easily and she fell to the floor. Silas rushed to her side to help, but she shoved him off of her in annoyance and stayed in a defensive position on the ground.

"Who the fuck are you?" Roxanne asked from the ground.

"Ok, since you guys apparently out of the loop, I'm Red Hood. And second, your parents didn't send me Marcia. I'm here to get you from these two clowns. Among other things." Jason took a step back. "Such as finding out what you're fiddling with."

Marcia's eyes went from scared to crazy in an instant, right as the cars pulled down the long driveway to the warehouse parking lot. Four big guys came out, holding weapons that thankfully weren't guns or rockets. I shoved my monitor into my belt and turned on my comm. I wouldn't be able to see what was happening, but maybe I could hear it over Jason's frequency.

"Red Hood, I'm coming in as back-up. Their backup is here and we're now outnumbered and possibly outgunned," I said as I made my way down the side of the building and inside.

By the time I made it to the main warehouse, Jason, Roxanne, and Silas were all facing Marcia, seeming equally alarmed. Marcia was crying, holding what definitely looked like a bomb now that I was standing right in front of her.

Marcia looked up at me and held the bomb-looking thing up toward me.

"Don't come any closer or I will blow us all to pieces," she said, her hands shaking.

I froze. "Um, this escalated quickly."

"Tell me about it," Jason muttered, staying still. "How about you hand that over--without setting it off--and we can talk--"

"I'm going to leave here dead, or with this machine working," Marcia said, her eyes darting to their (or her?) backup as they burst in. They also froze when they saw the bomb, thankfully. We didn't need her blowing us all up because some dudes didn't know how to stay cool.

"Your parents are looking for you," I said, like I was trying to calm a startled horse. "They're worried, your friends are worried...you don't have to do this."

She wiped her face with her sleeve. "Fuck them. You don't know what they're like. They only want me back so I can be under their control and go work at whatever big fancy company and make money for them. This is my chance to finally live my own life and make _them_ under my control.”

My brow furrowed under my mask, which was always slightly uncomfortable. We really needed to make these masks with people who weren't emotionally constipated in mind. What was she talking about?

"So you don't have to go back to them," Jason said. "You're your own person."

"Yeah, I wish." She paused. "But what are you doing here? Reward money?"

"Long story." I turned to Roxanne and Silas. "Why are you two here?"

"You Bat people aren't cops. We don't have to say shit to you," Roxanne hissed. "Marcia, hun, we're going to take these people out and we can go back to building the machine. Let's just put that down."

Marcia mulled that over. "I won't drop it until they're gone."

Their gang of thugs turned toward me and Jason.

"Can you take them while I take out that bomb or whatever it is Marcia's holding?" Jason asked me through his comm, startling me. Clever--his mask could mute his voice to the outside world. I needed something like that.

I nodded, just in time for one of their backup to take a leap at me with a club and another to try to tackle me. The one who tackled me succeeded, but unfortunately for both of them, I was really good at fighting on the ground. I managed to get on one guy's back and put him to sleep with a choke, kicking the others and scrambling to my feet.

I turned to grab a machine part to fight with but saw that Silas and Roxanne were grabbing whatever they could and booking it. I fought off the remaining henchmen with my stun gun and darted off after Roxanne and Silas.

They weren't too fast with all the gear so I caught up with them quickly, in the hallway in the front of the building.

"Get back or I'll shoot," Silas shouted, waving his gun so recklessly that I got a little nervous.

I threw two stun bombs at them before they could think, but the sudden movement made Silas shoot. I heard it whiz past my ear and into the wall with a bang. My stun bombs made contact, though, and took them both down.

I scrambled to grab them before they came to, and zip-tied their wrists and ankles together so they couldn't move or stand. I wasn't sure if anyone else knew how to put the machine parts together, so I smashed what they had as much as I could.

Gunshots rang out back in the main warehouse, and my heart raced even faster than I thought was possible. I rushed back into the warehouse, my electrically charged baton on the ready. But instead of finding chaos, I found Jason on his knees, a hopefully just passed out Marcia at his feet and the bomb in his hands.

“Run!" He shouted. His hands were fumbling, like he was drunk, and his words were a little slurred.

I did run, but toward him. He'd taken his gloves off to diffuse the bomb more readily, but it looked like Marcia had scratched his hands to pieces with what looked like a bunch of needles held together with duct tape, a few inches away from her tied up hands.

"Run _away_ from me, Blondie, Jesus," he continued to fumble with the bomb. "I need to diffuse this and she has some sort of poison or something on her."

"So you're poisoned and trying to diffuse a bomb?" I tugged off my gloves. I could diffuse it easily but it would take time. 

"I don't want you to get hurt because I didn't get you to get out," he said, soft enough so that I would be the only one who'd hear it. Thank god I couldn't see his face or my heart would have imploded. Instead it just fluttered at the gentleness of his words. "Please, Batgirl. Please."

"Nope, I'm too stubborn for this, and I don't want you to get hurt either. Or kill us both out of some stupid sense of...I dunno, chivalry?" I gently took the bomb from him. It wasn't the type to go off if you jostled it, but I wanted to be safe.

He gave in and fell to his hip. I kept an eye on him as I diffused the bomb, dismantling it and throwing the pieces into different shipping containers.

"Let's call GCPD and get out," I said, getting up. Jason tried to get up too but he swayed on his knees, his hands out on the ground like he was trying to catch his balance. Shit.

"M'fine, gimme...minute..." he said, falling onto his hip again.

"Nope, come on." I looped my arms under his armpits from behind and started to drag him toward the exit. "God, how are you so heavy?"

"Mmrmf."His head bobbed forward. Not good, not good.

I pressed my comm to get through to Oracle.

"Hey, O? Need some fast, huge favors please!" I put Jason down for a second.

"What's up?" She replied.

"Can you call GCPD and tell them Marcia, Roxanne, and Silas are tied up and ready for arrest at my current location? And can you get the med bag ready ASAP, plus poison antidotes and the big bed?"

She didn't even sigh. "Sure, you need help with traffic?"

"Yes please!" I dragged Jason as hard as I could, all the way to the car the backup henchmen had parked out front.

I bashed in the window of the driver's side and opened the door so I could hotwire it. Thankfully it was an old model that made it easy. Once I had the car running, I pulled Jason into the passenger seat and buckled him in. He was mostly limp, and his exposed skin was pale. I didn't want to try getting the Red Hood helmet off in case it was booby trapped.

So I sped like a bat out of hell (if hell were a warehouse)toward Oracle's headquarters, thanking a higher power that Babs could control traffic signals and divert police.

"Need a drive thru into the med bay," I said once we were about a mile away. "Also thanks for not asking me what the hell I’m doing."

"We've been doing this a long time. I know not to drill you until after the chaos is over," Babs said. "Door is open."

I sped inside, slamming on the brakes so hard that the car skidded several feet. I jumped out and went to Jason's side of the car. My adrenaline helped me drag his mostly limp body over to Babs, who immediately took a pinprick of his blood for analysis.

It felt like a century between the time I managed to get Jason into a bed and when Babs had an antidote for the poison ready. She jammed the needle into his arm and plunged the antidote in. Jason moaned and twisted in the bed, trying to get his helmet off. Babs popped a lock under the ear side of the helmet and it opened. His eyes fluttered at the light, and then squished closed. She pulled his helmet off and put it on the ground. How did she know how to remove his helmet without tripping any sort of alarm? Did she truly know everything, or did it just feel that way?

He rolled over onto his side, away from us, and mumbled "fuck" over and over again. The tension in my body finally diffused. I wanted to grab his hand and give it a squeeze, but he probably wouldn't have appreciated it.

"He'll feel like he's got the worst hangover in the world for a few more hours, but he'll survive," Babs said, tugging the blanket over him.

“That’s a relief.” I looked down at him. He looked like a little boy with a bad cold. “Do I need to be his nurse while he recovers?”

She shrugged. “Would you like to be?”

I felt my face get hot. “Um, if someone has to be.”

“Mmhm.” She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything else. That damn eyebrow. “I’ll be at my computer if either of you need me.”

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Sorry for the delay (as usual.) Thanks so much for reading and commenting--it really means a lot!

_Stephanie_

 

For someone so big and tough, Jason looked like the most darling little boy when he slept. He was curled up, snuggling one of the many pillows in Babs's spare room, where I'd often recovered from post-mission injuries. The tension around his eyes had softened, and his lips were parted, his breathing steady. I mean, he was still sick from the poison so occasionally he groaned miserably and rolled over to hang his head over the edge of the bed to (dry) retch into the trash can I'd put there, but still--very adorable. I wanted to smack him for it. How dare he be so attractive physically and yet so punchable when I thought about the emotional rollercoaster he’d forced me on?

Now that the adrenaline from the night was done pulsing through my veins, the full impact of his words back in the warehouse hit me.

_I don't want you to get hurt because I didn't get you to get out._

The amount of raw emotion in his words was more than I'd ever seen from him. Anxiety, sadness, urgency...tenderness? Caring? Definitely caring.

So, he cared about me. Enough to put his whole freaking life on the line for me. And yet, he acted like I was just a casual fuck. What was the truth? Either he was more stupidly heroic than I thought, or he was lying about his feelings toward me.

Annoyed, I sighed and continued to stare at him. Every time his brow furrowed in what looked like pain, I got the urge to gently smooth it away or run my fingers through his hair until he relaxed. His body looked just as cozy as the bed, too. I’d fit perfectly as a little spoon if I moved the pillow he was clutching. It had been so long since I’d really touched anyone in a non-sexual way that the thought of his broad chest pressed against my back and his breath ruffling my hair made my heart ache.

He shifted in the bed, his eyes fluttering open for a moment as his stomach growled loudly.It had been several hours since we'd arrived, and probably a really long time since he'd eaten.

I went to the kitchen and made him a smoothie, just in case his system couldn’t handle real food yet. By the time I came back to the room, his eyes were fully open, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"You up, Sleeping Beauty?" I sat down next to his bed again and held out the drink. "Brought you a smoothie."

"What? Oh, thanks." He slowly sat up with the blanket pulled up around his chest and took the smoothie. His voice was gravelly from sleep, and his curls were sticking up everywhere. Even though the room wasn't bright, he squinted against the light that was there. So this was what morning Jason looked like. I stared at the tops of my thighs to repel the thought of waking up next to him like this.

He sipped slowly, eyes unfocused.

“How long have I been out?” He asked after a long silence.

“Six or so hours.”

“Shit.” He drained the rest of the smoothie in one impressive go and put the glass down. “What happened? The last thing I really remember is getting scratched with that needle thing Marcia was holding, then everything gets patchy.”

“Oh, so you don’t remember trying to diffuse a bomb while you were completely fucked up, then?”

“No.” He shook his head, a smile lighting up his face. “What the fuck was my problem?”

“You said you wanted me to get out so I wouldn’t get hurt,” I said slowly.

He didn’t meet my eye, and I saw a blush make its way up his neck and to the tips of his ears. His smile had faded. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” I nibbled on my bottom lip. “So…that’s a thing. Thanks. For the sentiment, I guess. Putting your life on the line for me.”

“I was acting on instinct.” He shrugged.

“So your instinct was to put yourself on the line for me?” _Oh my god, why couldn’t I just shut up?_ Though seriously—what? He could have said that he was drugged, or whatever, and that it didn’t mean anything. But instead he went with his instincts.

 _“_ Steph.” He looked at me pleadingly. “Can we not?”

My temper flared. “Can we not what?”

“Talk about this right now.” He looked around and swung his legs off the bed and onto the floor. I opened my mouth to say something and he gave me an irritated stare.

 _Fine_.

I let him walk past me and into the hallway, down to Babs’ base.

 

_Jason_

Goddamn it.

What had I even said to her when I told her to get out, and how? I thought back as hard as I could, trying to piece any shred of a memory to another. I remembered how we got there, and how I was a cocky idiot for going in alone. Shit hit the fan when it turned out Marcia was the unhinged one. Then there was the failed conflict resolution, to put it lightly. And then when I tried to get Marcia out of the way and diffuse the bomb, Stephanie ran back toward me like a crazy person. I got poisoned somewhere in there, after I’d knocked Marcia out with a choke hold.

The lightning bolt of fear I’d felt seeing Stephanie run into trouble was unshakable. Everything else might have been hazy, but I knew right then and there that I cared about her more than I’d cared about anyone. Sure, I cared about Roy and Kory and the few other friends I had, even to the point of putting myself in harm’s way. But this was different.

I took a deep breath and kept walking down the hall to where Barbara was working. The lighting was warm, some throw rugs here and there, a little jazz playing. Even though she sat in front of futuristic screens covered in code, her desk was an incongruously old-fashioned wood.  It was so anti-Bruce that I immediately felt at ease. Plus, it was Barbara. Both she and Alfred had soft spots for me (or at least they did back in the day.)

"Oh good, you're finally up," Babs said, looking over her shoulder, smiling.

“You miss me, Barbie?” I grinned at her old nickname and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. She squeezed my arm, playfully faking annoyance at her old nickname.

“Oh my god, Barbie? A Barbie girl, in this Barbie world?” Steph snorted from behind meand descended into giggles, the brightness in her body coming out again.

“Call me Barbie and I swear I’ll make your life infinitely more difficult,” Babs deadpanned to Steph.

“You know I’m going to though.” Steph sat on the far edge of Babs’s desk after clearing a mountain of papers and folders. Babs was surprisingly untidy, at least in her workspace.

“I know.” Barbara leaned back and took off her glasses, pinching the bridge of her nose. “So. Jason...”

I sighed and sat on the other edge of her desk. I picked up the Rubix cube she had and started to fiddle with it. I used to be good at solving them, but I hadn't played with one in years. “Yeah?"

"I'm assuming that you don't want Bruce to know about this whole fiasco?”

"You'd be right."

"But you're fine working with both me and Stephanie."

I paused. "I mean, yeah. But just you two. You trust me, Barb?"

She nodded, not breaking eye contact with me. "I do. For the most part."

I smiled, half because of what she'd said and half because I'd solved the Rubix cube. "What, my sparkling record for the past few years hasn't won you over?"

"It has, but there's also the time you cut off a bunch of henchmen's heads and put them in a duffel bag."

I slid my hand over my face. "Why is that everyone's go-to example of my bad behavior?"

"Have you done things that are more worthy of your villainous highlight reel?" Stephanie asked.

"Well, no." I chewed my bottom lip, rescrambling the Rubix cube. "Ok, that's fair. But I haven't beheaded anyone in at least five years."

Barbara rolled her eyes.“If you do want to work with me or both of us on local cases, we'll go through a trial period. No killing unless it's truly self defense, no breaking the law more than we absolutely have to. If you follow those rules, I’ll keep Bruce and Dick off your back. Deal?”

Keeping Bruce and Dick off my back was just as good of an incentive as having to see Steph just as a friend was a deterrent. But being able to do my own thing without Batman or Nightwing rolling in with a bunch of sanctimonious bullshit would save me a ton of grief. Roy and I could do jobs within Gotham, get paid, and mind our own business. At the end of the day, I needed to work on things that Bruce didn’t find too savory, just to survive. But Steph…

"Sounds good,” I said quickly, against my better judgment. A man had to eat.

"Good." Barbara smiled for a second before her face went serious again. “So, the debrief. I didn’t get a chance to yell at you both for making stupid choices, so let me do that now. What the hell is the matter with you two? Did you even have a plan when you went in?”

"We had an outline?" Stephanie shrugged.

"When you turn in a paper, you don't get full credit for turning in the outline.” Barbara raised her eyebrow. “At least not in my class.”

I drummed my fingers on Barbara's desk. "You’re just pissed at us because the shit between the start and the result was messy. We got the desired result.”

Barbara gave me the look she used to give me when I would go on a limb during missions back in the day—annoyed, but impressed. “I suppose.”

“So what the hell happened anyway?” Steph asked.

Barbara turned back to the screens and pulled some things up—images of Marcia before, and her mug shot, which must have been taken after she was brought in by GCPD. “As you discovered, Marcia was the mastermind behind the whole plot—she made it look as if she’d disappeared so her friends wouldn’t come looking for her. Unfortunately, her overbearing parents did.”

“She said something about forging her own path—what was that about?” I asked.

Babs pulled up an image of her and her parents. Her parents looked happy and clearly wealthy. Marcia, on the other hand, looked miserable even though she’d clearly just graduated from something.

“The typical parental pressure to succeed, though for her, there was the pressure for her to make money. Even though they look wealthy, their company, which manufactures new medical technologies, is quickly collapsing. Marcia was seen as the great hope with her interest in science, so her parents pushed her and pushed her to get her Ph.D. That way, when they retired, there was someone who was qualified to take over and continue to funnel their money to them.”

“I would lose my mind if my parents were like that too,” Steph said. “But where do Roxanne and Silas fit in?”

“Roxanne stole Alicia Gray’s identity, which we knew. It appears that she discovered that Alicia Gray was looking for her birth family, which led her to Marcia. Apparently Marcia’s father was sleeping around with other women and had a very similar type—hence the strong resemblance between Marcia and Alicia. Both Marcia and her mother had no idea there was another woman, much less that there was one with a baby. Not that Marcia’s father was involved in Alicia’s life, even though he has money to spare.”

“What a scumbag,” I mumbled.

“Roxanne’s resemblance to Marcia and Alicia was just serendipity. So she found Marcia, and was planning to extort her for cash. But then, she figured out that Marcia had these…ambitions and figured that having the ability to control minds would come in handy in getting what she wanted. Silas was Marcia’s weed guy. From what I’m gathering from his computer files, he had a crush on Marcia, but settled for Roxanne after Marcia rejected him. Even though Marcia rejected him, he was more than willing to help her to hopefully get on her good side,” Barbara said.

Steph shook her head in disbelief. “That’s a little crazy. Like a 5 out of 10 on the Gotham crazy scale, but still.”

“So is that it?” I asked, itching to get out all of a sudden. I could hightail it out of Gotham for a few weeks to cool down from everything. Maybe going out to some divey bars with Roy and having meaningless sex with strangers could help me forget a little.

“Yep, that’s the gist of it,” Babs said. “I need to go anyway—dinner with my dad. If you want more details, I’ll be here later.”

Steph hopped off the edge of the desk and looked at me. I avoided her gaze.

“Where’s my stuff, by the way?” I asked. I was wearing a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that weren’t mine. To my relief, I was still wearing my own underwear.

“It’s in here—c’mon.” Steph nodded her head toward the hallway.

I followed her, keeping my eyes glued to the back of her head instead of on her dress-covered ass like every hormone in my body wanted me to do. I thanked her after she tossed me a duffel bag and started to leave, but heard her following me. I figured she was going somewhere else in Babs’s place, but she trailed me all the way outside. It was night, nearly ten. Babs’s neighborhood was on the nice, but loosely populated side of town, across from Gotham Park. Looking at her building, you never would have known she was down in the basement hacking into the CIA’s files or whatever she did for shits and giggles.

I didn’t have my motorcycle, so I checked the bus schedule on my phone. Stephanie was standing next to me a few feet away, also fiddling with her phone.

“You following me?” I asked brusquely.

She glared at me so intensely that I was taken aback. What a punch to the gut. The street lamp light fell across half her face, making her brown eyes seem to burn with heat. “What makes you think I would?”

“I don’t know.” I turned back to my phone. The bus was going to take a while and the stop was a few blocks away. She was still looking at me, almost expectantly. “I need to make the bus. Have a nice life, I guess.”

I turned and started walking away from her, feeling my stomach drop into my boots.

 _Say something, you dumbass_ , I thought to myself. But I couldn’t even put how I was feeling into words. Not that I was good at expressing emotions verbally on the best of days, but even if I were good at it, I’d still be tongue tied. What would I even say? That I wanted her desperately but didn’t even know if I could be the guy she deserved? That I was sorry for being a massive coward?

Against my better judgement, I turned and looked at her over my shoulder. She was still staring at me.

“Hey, asshole!” She yelled. Even at this distance, I could see her red cheeks and the tension in her body.

“What?” I yelled back. I paused. “And don’t call me an asshole!”

“Not my fault that you answered to it.” She put her hands on her hips.

“What do you want from me, Stephanie?” I asked, nearly begging for an answer. I could have just run, but that would be the weakest thing I’d ever done. She was walking toward me anyway, her grip on the handle of her bag so tight that her knuckles were nearly white.

“I just wanted to tell you that I like you, ok? As more than a friend,” She blurted in one go. “And I’m pissed off because you just used me for sex even though you were giving out vibes that you liked me. So I guess what I’m getting at is fuck you, Jason, for leading me on and using me. Take that and go have a nice life.”

My brain immediately went into hyperdrive, trying to process so many things at once that everything in my mind was pure gibberish. I blinked a few times to clear my head.

She liked me? She liked me. _She liked me_. Liked me. Stephanie.

I tried to say something as she walked away, but I was only able to open and close my mouth wordlessly. I finally started breathing again when she was halfway down the block.

“I like you too,” I shouted, feeling like the ground was going to be ripped from below my feet. My face was blazing hot and my heart felt like it was climbing its way up my throat to my dry mouth. I had fist fought armed terrorists, jumped off of skyscrapers, and literally _died_ once, but this, somehow, was the most terrified I had been in recent memory. My only saving grace was that the block was empty, so I didn’t have to deal with bystanders watching us.

She whipped around. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m fucking garbage at talking about my feelings, so please don’t make me yell it down the block again like a dickhead.”

She came jogging toward me, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

“Let’s take like forty steps back.” She held her hands up between us like she was trying to literally clear the air. “After you slept with me, you acted like you wanted nothing to do with me. But you like me. Romantically.”

I nodded because that was all I could do.

“So…what the hell?” She asked, a frown coming onto her face.

“I didn’t think you would ever be into me for anything beyond fucking, especially when you said that our night was just a one night thing.” I said, still avoiding eye contact. Whoever acted like brown eyes weren’t anything special hadn’t seen Stephanie’s. She could turn me to ash with a hard stare.

She raised an eyebrow. “But that was only because I was reacting to you snubbing me after our hook up. What about the actual night it happened?”

“I’m sorry.” I swallowed. “I was scared and confused. I’ve never even had serious feelings for anyone. On top of all that, I make half of my living killing people and have so many issues that I can’t count them. I’m not…I don’t think I’m right for you.”

I couldn’t bring myself to say that I didn’t think I deserved her, even though it was how I felt.

Her expression immediately softened and she took my hand. It was so small in mine, but just as callused. “Jay, no. If I somehow thought you weren’t good enough for me, I wouldn’t have slept with you at all. I’ve wrecked myself long enough to know when to check myself. Also, we both put on outfits and go fight crime, so it’s safe to say that we both have a lot of issues. ”

I laughed dryly. “You don’t even know me that well yet.”

“But what I do know of you, I like. A lot. More than I’ve liked anyone in a really long time. Will you let me try to get to know you more so I can decide if you’re right for me on my own terms?”

I wasn’t so stupid that I would pass up an opportunity like this, even if it came back to bite me in the ass later, and even if it scared the everliving shit out of me. I had dealt with death and came back, learning how to live again. I had more baggage than Gotham International Airport, but I was definitely less of a shit show than a I was a few years ago. I could do this. I could learn, especially for her.

Instead of answering, I tilted her chin up and kissed her softly, savoring the plush softness of her lips. Cupping her face with both hands, I deepened the kiss, momentarily pulling back every now and then between kisses to confirm that yes, I was kissing her and yes, I was the luckiest fucker in Gotham. It was weird, feeling flat out happy and being able to let myself enjoy it, at least for a moment.

“So that’s a yes?” She grinned, breathless. “Because if you just gave me that bone melting kiss before telling me to fuck off, I’ll kick you in the kneecaps right now.”

“Of course it’s a yes.”

I kissed her again, pulling her toward the bus stop shelter and pinning her against it so I could feel her body against mine. My libido, which had gone into a depressive hibernation after our night together, came roaring back to life when her breasts pressed against me and I got a good handle on her. God, that feminine flare from her small waist to her lush hips drove me crazy. The contrast between her body and mine turned on some ancient caveman type of switch inside me that made me want to hike her dress up around her hips and fuck her right then and there.

“Maybe we should go somewhere that’s not in the middle of the street,” She finally said, her lips puffy.

“You read my mind,” I replied. She raised an eyebrow and ground against the half-boner I had. “Ok, or you read that.”

“My place?” She peeled herself away from me and looked up and down the street. She threw her arm up when a free cab came by. “It’s not too far by cab.”

We piled into the car and headed off, tucked against the driver’s side of the backseat that was hidden, which was hidden by the cab’s barrier. Steph kissed me again, threading her fingers through my hair. Usually in my sexual encounters, making out was just a means to an end, but kissing her felt so good that I could have just held her all night, feeling the weight of her body against mine, without going any further. That day wasn’t today, but I knew I’d want to in the future. The fact that I had that chance to settled nerves I didn’t even know I had.

“Can’t wait to be alone with you,” I said quietly, burying my face into her neck and nipping the spot I remembered she liked from last time. How much longer did we have to be in the cab?

“I can’t wait either,” she replied, taking my hand under her dress and guiding it between her legs. The driver was oblivious, blasting music in the front seat. He could only see us from the shoulders up anyway.

My breath caught in my throat when I ran my thumb over the very damp crotch of her panties. I had flashbacks to our first night together, when I got her off while we both watched in the mirror—seeing her with her pretty thighs parted, completely yielding to my touch and laying against my chest nearly unraveled me. Her eyes had gone hazy with pleasure, just watching and letting me play with her however I wanted. And when she came? Jesus. I wanted to do that to her again and again.

We really, _really_ needed to get to her place.

She glanced out the window and held my hand between her legs, tugging her panties to the side. If the driver looked at us in the rearview mirror, he probably thought we were just snuggling, though he’d probably smell her arousal if he were in the back without his extremely aggressive air freshener. I ran my finger up and down her swollen lips, circling her clit just close enough to make her twitch then dipping a finger inside her before starting the cycle over again. She bit her lip so hard I thought she’d break the skin, squirming underneath my touch and spreading her legs wider to give me more access. She gave me a questioning look and I shook my head, grinning.

“Later,” I whispered, continuing my path around her clit.

She raised an eyebrow in amused suspicion, even though I knew it turned her on by the way her pussy clenched a few times around my finger.

“Fine then, lover boy.” She gave me a little peck on the lips. “Thankfully we’re here.”

We had come to a stop in front of a nice apartment building—not too fancy, but not run down either. It seemed like a neighborhood where we’d both blend. I slid my finger out of her panties and covertly sucked it clean when I reached down to grab my card to pay. The cab driver grunted a thank you after I paid, not noticing (or pretending not to notice) that both of us were very flushed and disheveled. Steph rushed us inside and up three flights of stairs.

“Can’t believe we just did that in the cab,” she said, digging through her bag for her keys.

“Remember when I teased you about you getting off on PDA?” I asked. “I wasn’t too far off, was I?”

“Oh shut up,” she said with a cute snort, whipping her keys out and unlocking her door.

Her place was feminine and comfortable, with a big soft couch right in the middle of the living room and the smell of a sweet blown out candle still lingering in the air—definitely very “her”. I didn’t take in many more details besides that because the moment the door closed, we were all over each other. Hard kisses, tongues and hands everywhere, clothes tossed on the floor.

“Which way’s your bedroom?” I asked, freeing her breasts from her bra. She had great tits, full enough to be a little more than a handful for my big hands.

“Second door on the left.”

I threw her over my shoulder caveman style, which made her squeal happily, and carried her to her bedroom. Even though she had muscle and a little bit of meat on her, she wasn’t too heavy. I placed her gently on the edge of the bed so she was sitting up.

“What, you weren’t planning on throwing me down on the bed and taking me, Tarzan style?” She asked with a smile that suggested she wouldn’t be opposed to the idea.

“Nope. Not today at least.” I knelt down in front of her and tugged her panties down to her ankles. “Lay down.”

I opened her legs and pushed them back until she was fully exposed to me, making her hold her knees. I had seen a lot of pussies in my lifetime, both in person and on the internet, but hers easily took a top spot. Pink, her folds wet and a little swollen with arousal, a smattering of curls. I gave myself a quick stroke to make sure this wasn’t a dream. Thank god it wasn’t. I dove right in, running my tongue along her slit and sliding my middle finger into her. She whimpered immediately, her hips raising.

I tried every trick I knew, letting her guide me with her squirms and loud moans. My worry of whether it was good for her disappeared every time she nearly kicked me in the face or let out a mewling groan. Did she have neighbors? Because if she did, they were probably going to hate her guts once the night was over. Both of our guts. I was borderline painfully hard and she hadn’t even touched me.

I brought her closer and closer to release, slowly running my tongue along her clit and working my fingers inside her in a steady rhythm. Right when I felt those telltale quick squeezes around my fingers, I pulled out of her and stood.

“You’re an asshole, you know that?” she said, sweat on her brow and her body slightly limp with her legs still splayed apart.

I shrugged, feeling myself smile. I wiped my face with the back of my hand “I told you that I’d make you come later.”

“But you didn’t tell me you’d torture me like this.” She slid her hand between her legs and started playing with herself. I climbed over her and pinned her down with her arms over her head, like I had done on our first night together. She smirked at me.

“It’ll pay off.” I kissed her long and hard again. “You have a condom?”

She nodded and went into her side table drawer, coming up with both the condom and a small vibrator. I gave her a look and rolled the condom on, curious as to how she was going to use the toy. I settled on top of her, ready to slide in, until she swept my knees out from under me and ended up on top, straddling my hips.

“You’ve had your way with me, and now I’m going to have my way with you.” She rested her hands on my chest so I laid back and slid down on my cock, wiggling her hips once I was in her to the hilt.

“I don’t mind this at all,” I said, putting my hands behind my head so I could watch her ride me.

“You say that now.” She rolled her hips, making my toes curl.

She slid up and down, painfully slow, occasionally glancing at me to see how I was faring. She seemed satisfied by the fact that I was about to explode after a minute or two of fucking, playing with my nipples and tightening with every upstroke.

She rode me faster and faster, her breasts jiggling in time and her moans escalating. I resisted the urge to grab her hips and pound up into her because I didn’t want to lose the image of her in that moment: head tossed back, hands cupping her own breasts, a pink flush creeping up all the way up from her middle to her neck. She was beautiful.

I could tell she was getting closer and closer when she reached over to grab the vibrator she’d pulled out with the condom. She turned it on and placed it on her clit, her hips jerking forward the moment she did. She had tightened around me so much that I was sure I was going to lose it any second. I brought my hands down to her hips to slow her down some, and thankfully she let me.

“I think I’m close,” she stammered, completely focusing on grinding on me and pressing the vibrator to herself.

“You want to come on my cock?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“Yes,” she whispered, her thighs shaking around mine.

I grabbed her by the hips and thrusted up hard and fast, the sound of my body pounding hers covered up by the sound of her climax. The raw sound of her orgasm and the vice-like grip on my dick sent me right over the edge with her. I flat out saw stars, grounding myself back to earth by running my hands up and down her thighs. She had goosebumps.

She laid forward onto my chest, heart fluttering like a hummingbird’s and breath ruffling my chest hair. Eventually she gained her strength back and slid off of me, taking the condom off and tossing it in the trash.

“Mind if I just lay here to a bit?” She asked, sliding one hip onto the bed so she was half on top of me.She lifted my arm so she could snuggle up against my side. “Because that was intense.”

She was a perfect fit, plush and curvy. I loved the smell of her hair and its smoothness against my shoulder. So this was why people loved cuddling. Or maybe I just loved cuddling with her. I felt safe and unguarded for the first time in a really long time. Or ever, really.

 _I could get used to this,_ I thought to myself, closing my eyes. I nearly drifted off, which was a rare occurrence. 

“Hey, Jay.” She kicked my leg a little. “Don’t fall asleep yet. We’ve got round two, you know.”

I grinned. _I could_ really _get used to this._

\- End -

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw, I'm writing a (long) one-short follow-up to this. It'll likely be a while since I'm an insanely slow writer (for the most part--sometimes I lose my mind and write like 5k words in a day.) But with the holidays coming up I might be able to get it out sooner.
> 
> Thanks again for reading <3


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